Don't bite your Paris Olympic medal as bits might come off!

The picture explains:

Image: MikeB

There are reports of the medals quickly deteriorating - within days. More embarrassment for the organisers. The medals were manufactured by a third party business and they incorporate some metal from the Eiffel Tower. 

Let me add a bit of detail on this based on a report about it in The Times today.  It is a bronze medal won by Nyah Huston.

The quality of the medals at the Paris Games has been called into question. Huston is an American skateboarder. He highlighted the poor condition of the bronze medal he won in the men's street competition.

He recorded a video at his home in Laguna Beach, California. He said: "All right, so these Olympic medals look great when they're brand-new. But after letting it sit on my skin with some sweat for a little bit and letting my friends wear it over the weekend.." (Did his friends abuse the medal??)

Huston, 29, flipped over the medal to reveal that the bronze colouring was chipped away in several places around the grey centre. As mentioned, at least part of the medal has been made with metal taken from the Eiffel Tower.

He added that, "They are apparently not as high quality as you would think."

He zoomed in on the medal with this commentary: "Look at this thing it's looking rough. Even the front is starting to chip off a little. I don't know. Olympic medals, you gotta step up the quality a little bit."

In a caption to a picture of his medal he wrote: "Medal looking like it went to war and back."

And he later wrote a follow-up message acknowledging: "I guess the medals are meant to be in cases."

It looks as though he thinks the medal should have been provided with a custom-made case to protect them. Alternatively they should be of higher quality!

The company that made the medals is called Paris Mint. They made just over 5000 medals with 2600 for the Olympics and 2400 for the Paralympics. Each weighs about 530 grams. They were designed by Chaumet, a luxury jewellery brand.

Gold medals are required to be made from at least 92.5% silver and contain a minimum of 6 g of gold often as a coating. The value of the medal is about £600 sterling. Bronze medals are usually made from a mix of copper, zinc and tin.

“Paris 2024 is working closely with the Monnaie de Paris, the institution tasked with the production and quality control of the medals, and together with the National Olympic Committee of the athlete concerned, in order to appraise the medal to understand the circumstances and cause of the damage.”

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins. Also: sources for news articles are carefully selected but the news is often not independently verified. Also, I rely on scientific studies but they are not 100% reliable.