Source : ABC NEWS
Winter Olympics organisers are urgently looking into the apparently flimsy Milano Cortina medals after at least four athletes had their awards fall apart in the first three days of competition.
Andrea Francisi, the chief operations officer for the organising committee, said it was working on a solution.
“We are aware of the situation, we have seen the images. Obviously, we are trying to understand in detail if there is a problem,” Francisi said.
“But obviously we are paying maximum attention to this matter, as the medal is the dream of the athletes, so we want that obviously in the moment they are given it that everything is absolutely perfect because we really consider it to be the most important moment. So we are working on it.”
Women’s downhill gold medallist Breezy Johnson was one of the first to unintentionally test the medals to breaking point.
She was jumping for joy when the medal came detached from the ribbon around her neck.
Breezy Johnson’s medal came unstuck from its ribbon during her zealous celebration. (Getty Images: Andrew Milligan/PA Images)
“Don’t jump in them,” the American warned silver medallist Emma Aicher of Germany.
During their post-race press conference, Johnson showed a gobsmacked Aicher the aftermath of her celebration, before revealing to reporters the various bits and pieces that led to the critical fault.
“I was jumping in excitement, and it broke,” she said, holding up the medal, the ribbon and the pin that was supposed to keep the whole thing together.
“It came apart. I’m sure somebody will fix it. It’s not crazy broken, but it’s a little broken.”
TV footage broadcast in Germany captured the moment biathlete Justus Strelow realised his mixed relay bronze had fallen off the ribbon around his neck and clattered to the floor as he danced along to a song with teammates.
“Hey Olympics, what’s up with those medals?” the German biathlon team posted on Instagram.
“Are they not meant to be celebrated?”
Justus Strelow’s German biathlon teammates laughed as his bronze medal snapped off its ribbon. (Instagram: dsv_biathlon)
His German teammates cheered and laughed as Strelow tried without success to reattach the medal before realising the smaller piece had broken off and was still on the floor.
US figure skater Alysa Liu posted a clip on social media of her team event gold medal, detached from its official ribbon.
“My medal don’t need the ribbon,” Liu wrote.
Women’s 10km + 10km skiathlon silver medallist Ebba Andersson also had the same thing happen as she was running across the snow with teammate and gold medallist Frida Karlsson after their medal ceremony.
“That did not go completely according to plan. It’s in two pieces, with one of our coaches, right now,” she said.
“One of the three pieces that made up the medal fell off. After a lot of faffing about, we let that piece be. It was a small pin that secured the medal in its pendant.
“I don’t know if the medal is made to hang around your neck when you’re running across half of the home straight, and also doing it at the speed of Frida Karlsson. I was a bit stupid trying to follow her.”
It is not the first time the quality of Olympic medals has come under scrutiny.
Following the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, some medals had to be replaced after athletes complained they were starting to tarnish or corrode, giving them a mottled look likened to crocodile skin.
ABC/AP
