An Olympic medal should last forever.
But since the Paris Olympics finished in August, more than 100 athletes, including six Australians, have complained to the International Olympic Committee that the bling they received in Paris is disintegrating.
What makes the crumbling medals all the more embarrassing for the French is that they were produced by LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the company owned by France’s richest family.
One of the unhappy medal winners was Australia’s Natalya Diehm, who won a bronze medal in the BMX freestyle.
Diehm has shared photos on social media of her medal, which looks nothing like the one she received in July.
“I guess I just wanted to keep it quiet,” Diehm said. “It’s unfortunate because the original bronze colour is so pretty. I’m not sure why this has happened to mine. I haven’t taken it out partying. It’s not from people touching it too much.
The bronze medal won at the Paris Olympics by Natalya Diehm in BMX for Australia.Credit: Instagram
“Mine is one of the worst to come out of the Olympics. I’m hoping I can get it fixed or replaced.”
A New York Times investigation this week highlighted significant problems with medals awarded to athletes in Paris, forcing the IOC to apologise.
“Damaged medals will be systematically replaced by the Monnaie de Paris and engraved in an identical way to the originals,” the IOC said in a statement.
This masthead can reveal that the Australian Olympic Committee has stepped in to help several athletes try and return faulty medals and have them replaced.
Six athletes, including Diehm, have reported problems with their medals. None of the dodgy medals are gold. Both silver and bronze medals appear the ones to have encountered problems.
Sweet success: A bronze medal for BMXer Natalya Diehm.Credit: Getty Images
After the Rio 2016 Olympics, some athletes also reported problems with their medals.
According to the NYT, Monnaie de Paris, the French mint which produced the medals, has taken responsibility and blamed the problem “on a technical issue related to varnish”.
The Olympic medals in Paris were designed by Chaumet, which is a “luxury jewellery and watchmaker and part of the LVMH group”.
LVMH, Paris 2024’s biggest corporate sponsor, has been declining requests for comment since news broke of the issues with the medals.
According to the NYT, the mint began an internal enquiry last year after the first complaints were made.
“The mint discovered that the varnish used to prevent oxidation was defective,” the report reads. “Its varnish recipe is a trade secret, but the coating was weakened after the mint changed it to conform to recent European Union regulations banning the use of chromium trioxide, a toxic chemical used to prevent metal from rusting, according to La Lettre, a French industry newspaper.”
Australian swimmer Ariarne Titmus knows a thing or two about medals. She won four in Paris – two gold and two silver. Luckily for her, she rarely deals in bronze, which seem to have been the most problematic.
Ariarne Titmus stands with silver medallist Summer McIntosh, of Canada, (left) and bronze medallist Katie Ledecky, of the United States.Credit: AP
Titmus says her medals aren’t damaged but admits she takes perfect care of them, unlike some overseas athletes who wore theirs to Parisian nightclubs.
“To be honest, they’re Olympic medals, and you’d hope they’d be of the highest quality,” Titmus said.
“I just think potentially people who have had their medals wrecked probably aren’t looking after them the way that they should. If I had an Olympic medal, I wouldn’t be throwing it around in a club somewhere.
“I don’t take them anywhere, and I don’t really let people touch them because they do tarnish really easily. Not just the Paris medals but the Tokyo medals. Even just when they all cling together, they scratch.”
