Mystery of breaking medals baffles Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics organisers

MILAN – Whether gold, silver or bronze, there is one thing Milano-Cortina Winter Olympic medals have in common: They can break.

Games organisers said on Feb 10 that athletes whose medals had broken could hand them in for repair after a string of embarrassing glitches.

Operations communications director Luca Casassa told reporters a solution had been found, saying: “Milano-Cortina 2026 confirms our commitment that the medals will meet the highest quality of standards.

“As a precaution, we are recalling some of the medals to ensure all athletes’ joy (upon winning a medal) can be ‘360 degrees’. This is important for them and important for us.”

Organisers on Feb 9 said they had launched an investigation into the mishaps experienced by Olympic medallists, including downhill skiing champion Breezy Johnson of the United States.

A source close to the situation said that the issue may stem from the medals’ cords, which are fitted with a breakaway mechanism required by law. The system is designed to release automatically if pulled with force, preventing the wearer from being choked.

Johnson is one of several athletes who have seen their medals snap, crack or pop just minutes after award ceremonies over the first few days of the Games.

“It is heavy, it’s broken,” Johnson told reporters shortly after the podium ceremony on Feb 8, showing off her damaged medal in one hand while the separated ribbon hung around her neck.

“I was jumping up and down in excitement, then it just fell off.”

On Feb 10, Johnson said she had been given a new gold medal.

“Yeah, they gave me a new one. I have to get it engraved though still. So that needs to happen,” she said.

She is not the only one, with German biathlete Justus Strelow seeing his bronze medal from the mixed relay lying cracked on the floor during celebrations at their team headquarters.

Cross-country skier Ebba Andersson of Sweden also saw her silver medal from the women’s skiathlon suffer a similar fate.

US figure skater Alysa Liu posted on Instagram showing that the ribbon had come off her gold medal,

which she won in the team competition on Feb 8

.

Fellow team event gold medallist Ellie Kam said Liu, her roommate, was jumping for joy when the medal fell and picked up “a couple of dents”.

“She was so excited that she was jumping up and down, and the medal is a little bit too heavy for the ribbon, I think, so it just popped off,” Kam told Reuters on Feb 9.

Liu later had the medal replaced, Kam said.

“It was a lot more drama than I thought there was going to be when I got back to my room,” she added. “But all is well and good.”

The medals have a clean-cut design and represent “discs of ice” made of two halves that join through the Olympic and Paralympic symbols in the middle.

The halves represent the individual athlete and the network behind their success, made up of family, team and coaches. They also have two different textures, a frosted and polished one.

The gold medals weigh about 500g – as much as the silver medals – and contain 6g of gold. The bronze medals are slightly lighter at 420g.

Organisers also apologised on Feb 9 for the surface of the podium at the figure skating team event after some athletes complained that it damaged their skates.

“The anti-slip surface of the podium caused some damage to the athletes’ skates. Milano-Cortina 2026 is taking steps to replace the surface to prevent a reoccurrence,” officials said in a statement.

Several skaters had to get their blades sharpened after stepping off the podium on Feb 8, prompting comments on social media about its surface.

All the medallists – from the US, Japan and Italy – came onto the ice for the ceremony but had no skate guards handy before stepping onto the podium. REUTERS