THE QUALITY of the bronze medals awarded to athletes at the 2024 Paris Olympics has been controversial. One of them came from the United States (US) skateboarder, Nyjah Huston who won a bronze medal on July 29, 2024.
On his Instagram stories, he showed off his bronze medal that had been damaged. Huston highlighted that the medal looked dull and rusty just a few days after he received it.
“OK, so this Olympic medal looks great when it’s new, but after letting it sit on my skin with sweat for a while and then letting my friends wear it over the weekend, it turns out it’s not as high quality as you might think,” he said.
“I mean, look at that thing. It looks rough. Even the front. It’s starting to chip a little bit. So yeah, I don’t know, Olympic medals, maybe you need to upgrade them a little bit,” Huston wrote in his post.
Huston said that while the medals looked good when new, they deteriorated after being exposed to sweat and used by his friends over the weekend. He even said the medals looked like they had been “used to war and back again.”
The Paris 2024 medals themselves feature a piece of the Eiffel Tower as a tribute to the host city, but the composition of the medals varies from Olympics to Olympics. Bronze medals are typically made from a mixture of copper, zinc and tin, which can react with oxygen in the air and cause the surface to become dull. How quickly the medals degrade depends on the quality of the metal used.
In response to the incident, a Paris 2024 spokesperson said they are working with the Monnaie de Paris, the agency that produces the medals, to investigate the cause of the damage. Athletes whose medals were damaged will be replaced.
Huston, who is one of the most successful skateboarders with six world titles and 12 gold medals at the Summer X Games, was disappointed with the condition of his bronze medal, as it was an unusual experience for him. (Z-3)
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