Over 100 Olympians & Paralympians Claim Their Paris Medals Are Deteriorating
Some athletes from the Paris Olympics and Paralympics claim their 2024 medals have begun to show signs of deterioration and damage.
Published Feb. 24 2025, 12:37 p.m. ET
The Olympics and Paralympics are time-honored traditions for many athletes. Some of the best competitors in the world show up to these events every four years, where they hope that a lifetime of training will pay off, allowing them to take home one of the prestigious awards.
But for those who played in the Paris 2024 Games, those prestigious awards may be beginning to show their age just months after they were handed out.
Some athletes have come forward to ask for their medals to be replaced, after they've noticed signs of damage and deterioration.
Keep reading to learn why some of the 5,084 medals that were handed out during the Paris Olympics and Paralympics are looking a bit worse for the wear, and what the French mint plans to do about it now that they've been notified.
Some athletes claim their Paris 2024 medals are starting to fall apart.
A few of the athletes who competed in the 2024 Games have reached out to the French mint to have their medals replaced after they started to lose a bit of their metallic luster, according to AP News, who spoke with the mint directly.
“The Monnaie de Paris has taken the issue of damaged medals very seriously since the first exchange requests in August, and has mobilized its internal teams,” the mint told AP News.
According to them, the issue has to do with the way the medals were varnished, which caused them to start to lose their shine. "The Monnaie de Paris will replace all damaged medals at the athletes’ request during the first quarter of 2025," they continued.
While they didn't disclose exactly how many requests they've received since August, the French publication La Lettre estimates that more than 100 athletes have reached out for replacements, as per the Associated Press.
If you don't remember, the medals for the Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games featured a uniquely Parisian design, and included a bit of iron from the Eiffel Tower, which bore the Olympic rings for the duration of the events in 2024.
The design was created by Chaumet, a French jewelry house tasked with coming up with the concept. Now, Chaumet and others involved in the creation of the medals are facing criticism from award winners.
Olympic and Paralympic athletes have been showing off their damaged medals on social media.
Several medal winners have shared images and videos of their medals, highlighting some of the issues they've encountered.
Track and field Paralympian Hunter Woodhall posted a video of the medal he won in the Paralympics to Instagram, showing how the ribbon had torn shortly after he brought it home. After he reached out to see what could be done about the rip, he was told that the entire medal would need to be replaced, since there was no way to swap the ribbons without damaging the medal itself.
Funnily enough, Woodhall's medal itself had already suffered some dings and damage, in addition to the ribbon. In the end, Woodhall decided to keep his original medal.
Skateboarder Nyjah Huston shared how badly his medal had deteriorated just days after the Games, showing followers his tarnished Olympic medal. In the video, which was shared by Yahoo Sports, Huston blamed body oil and sweat for the damage, saying that the medals weren't as "high quality" as he would've thought.
It's hard to imagine how frustrating it must be for these athletes to deal with this issue, but at least it seems like the French mint is doing its best to rectify the situation. Hopefully they are able to get them all replaced quickly, so that the athletes can go back to showing off their hard-won hardware.