Paris Olympics 2024: American Skateboarder To Be Given New Medal After Complaint Of Damage

A few days into his Olympic Bronze win, American skateboarder Nyjah Huston slammed the ‘poor quality’ of his medal. The Olympian revealed the rusted and degraded condition of his medal on his Instagram story. Now, a Paris Olympics 2024 spokesperson has assured that the athletes would be given replacement for any damaged medal.

According to Time, the spokesperson noted, “Paris 2024 is aware of a social media report from an athlete whose medal is showing damage a few days after it was awarded. Paris 2024 is working closely with the Monnaie de Paris, the institution responsible for the production and quality control of the medals, and with the National Olympic Committee of the athlete concerned, to assess the medal and understand the circumstances and cause of the damage.”

The spokesperson further added that the medals are the most-coveted objects of the Games and that they are most-precious for the athletes. “Damaged medals will be systematically replaced by the Monnaie de Paris and engraved in an identical way to the originals,” the person stated.

This year, the Paris Olympics 2024 Athletes’ Commission decided that the medals must contain an original piece of iron from the Eiffel Tower. While the gold medals are predominantly made of silver with a gold coating, bronze medals are of copper, zinc and tin.

Earlier, USA’s Nyjah Huston, who won Bronze on July 29, took to his Instagram Stories and opened up on the matter. He said, “Alright, so these Olympic medals look great when they’re brand new, but after letting it sit on my skin with some sweat for a little bit and then letting my friends wear it over the weekend, they’re apparently not as high quality as you would think.” The Olympian added, “I mean, look at that thing. It’s looking rough. Even the front. It’s starting to chip off a little. So yeah, I don’t know, Olympic medals, you maybe gotta step up the quality a little bit.”

The 29-year-old athlete won the bronze medal in the Men’s Street Skateboarding final in Paris. He shared more clips and pictures of the dull medal, poking fun at it and saying that it seemed to have returned from a war. “Medal looking like it went to war and back,” he said.