Olympics Organizers Investigating Why So Many Medals Are Breaking This Year

Breezy Johnson sped her way to America's first gold medal at the Milan Cortina Games by posting a narrow victory in the women's downhill on Sunday. Afterward she was noticeably emotional on the medal podium as she realized that she had captured her biggest professional dream. It was a once-in-a-lifetime moment and she'll always have the physical gold medal as a souvenir. That is, if it can stay in one piece.

Speaking to reporters after her triumph, Johnson revealed that her brand new bauble was already a bit worse for the wear.

"So there's the medal. And there's the ribbon," she said while holding the gold. "And here's the little piece that is supposed to go into the ribbon to hold the medal, and yeah, it came apart."

Alysa Liu, who was part of Team USA's gold medal figure skating performance, had a similar experience with video proof posted to Instagram.

"My medal don't need the ribbon," she captioned the post while displaying the medal and ribbon freshly separated.

For a trend-defining third example, members of the bronze-winning German biathlon team could not celebrate their accomplishment without one of the participant's medals straight up falling off her neck and crashing to the ground.

With all of this evidence available, organizers are now investigating what the problem could be with medal construction and vowing to fix it.

"We are fully aware of the situation," Andrea Francis, who serves as the Milan Cortina Games chief operations officer, said. "We are looking into exactly what the problem is. "We are going to pay particular attention to the medals, and obviously this is something we want to be perfect when the medal is handed over because this is one of the most important moments for the athletes."

That seems reasonable. Athletes work their whole lives to earn these things and the ribbon can't even do the job for a few hours? That's just not right.

This is the second consecutive Games that have brought headlines about less than perfect medals. The 2024 Paris event saw stories about the qualities of the medals handed out to winners and replacement requests skyrocketed after athletes returned home and the prizes began to age.

In this case it seems like it's an attachment issue, which might be easier to resolve before many more are handed out.

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