A Chinese Olympian who won gold at the Tokyo Summer Games this month has jumped to social media to ask other medal winners if their awards are already starting to fall apart.
Chinese gymnast Zhu Xueying, who won gold in the women’s trampoline, added photos to social media showing that a chunk of her medal has peeled off, and she wondered if other medal winners were experiencing the same thing.
Xueying’s photos show a dark sport in the upper left-hand area of her medal where she says the facing peeled off only weeks after she took possession of the award.
“Can your medals … peel off too?” Zhu wrote on China’s social media website Sina Weibo. After many replies, the gymnast added: “Let me clarify this… I didn’t mean to peel the thing off at first, I just discovered that there was a small mark (like pic one) on my medal,” she wrote. “I thought that it was probably just dirt, so I rubbed it with my finger and found that nothing changed, so then I picked at it and the mark got bigger.”
Xueying was not alone. Chinese gold medal swimmer Wang Shun also reported that his medal was flaking.
The problem with the peeling medals may be in the unique smelting process employed in their creation. Japan did not use pure metal sources to create the medals but instead used metals reclaimed from discarded electronics.
TOKYO, JAPAN – JULY 30: Xueying Zhu of Team China competes in the Women’s Trampoline Final on day seven of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at Ariake Gymnastics Centre on July 30, 2021 in Tokyo, Japan. (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images)
Olympics organizers spent two years taking the used electronics donated by Japanese citizens and salvaging the metals from the devices to make the medals. But Olympics officials also insist that peeling does not diminish the relative value of the medals.
Officials claimed that what was seen flaking on the medals was a protective coating, not the metal beneath. “Even if you remove the coating, it does not directly affect the medals’ quality,” said a statement sent to the media by Olympics officials.
There is a process to replace Olympic medals. When athletes lose their medal or have one stolen, Olympics officials can have a new one fashioned using the original mold. The replacement is not free and has usually only been issued after the loss of a medal, not simple damage.
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