MILAN — Deal with with care. That is the message from gold medalist Breezy Johnson on the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics after she and different athletes discovered their medals broke inside hours.
Olympic organizers are investigating with “most consideration” after a spate of medals have fallen off their ribbons throughout celebrations on the opening weekend of the Video games.
“Do not soar in them. I used to be leaping in pleasure, and it broke,” ladies’s downhill ski gold medalist Johnson stated after her win Sunday. “I am certain any individual will repair it. It is not loopy damaged, however a bit of damaged.”
The TV broadcast in Germany captured the second biathlete Justus Strelow realized the blended relay bronze he had gained Sunday had fallen off the ribbon round his neck and clattered to the ground as he danced alongside to a music with teammates.
His German teammates cheered as Strelow tried with out success to reattach the medal earlier than realizing a smaller piece, seemingly the clasp, had damaged off and was nonetheless on the ground.
U.S. determine skater Alysa Liu posted a clip on social media of her crew occasion gold medal, indifferent from its official ribbon.
“My medal do not want the ribbon,” Liu wrote early Monday.
Andrea Francisi, the chief video games operations officer for the Milan Cortina organizing committee, stated it was engaged on an answer.
“We’re conscious of the state of affairs. We have now seen the pictures. Clearly we try to know intimately if there’s a downside,” Francisi stated Monday. “However clearly we’re paying most consideration to this matter, because the medal is the dream of the athletes, so we would like that clearly within the second they’re given it that all the pieces is completely excellent, as a result of we actually take into account it to be a very powerful second. So we’re engaged on it.”
It is not the primary time the standard of Olympic medals has come underneath scrutiny.
Following the 2024 Summer season Olympics in Paris, some medals had to get replaced after athletes complained they have been beginning to tarnish or corrode, giving them a mottled look likened to crocodile pores and skin.
