Winter Olympics medals breaking as bosses ‘wanting carefully’ to resolve PR catastrophe

Winter Olympic bosses are “looking closely” at why medals are breaking after athletes started to share their experiences online in a PR disaster for the games.

Team USA’s gold medalists, Breezy Johnson and Alysa Liu, both took to social media to reveal the ribbon had come away from the medal soon after they received their prize.

Alysa, who was part of their figure skating team, shared a video on TikTok with the caption: “I just got this Olympic gold medal, already broke it…” She held up the gold medal in one hand and the ribbon in the other. And in another video, she joked: “My medal don’t need the ribbon.”

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A video on Instagram also showed the German team, who won bronze in the team biathlon, experience the issue with one of the medals breaking as athletes jumped up and down in celebration.

Andrea Francisi, Milan-Cortina 2026 chief games operations officer, said: “We are fully aware of the situation… We are looking into exactly what the problem is.

“We are going to pay particular attention to the medals, and obviously this is something we want to be perfect when the medal is handed over because this is one of the most important moments for the athletes.”

According to BBC Sport, a United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee said they are waiting for organisers to resolve the issue.

It’s not the first time athletes have had problems with the medals – and it plagued some events at the summer games in Paris.

Many athletes took to social media to show off the problems with their medals, including diver Yasmin Harper, who won Team GB’s first medal in Paris, when she noticed her medal was showing signs of “tarnishing”.

Paris 2024 organisers said any damaged medals would be replaced.