In breaking news from Milan, the medals handed out at the Winter Olympics have been breaking.
Olympic organizers are giving “maximum attention” to an investigation into several medals snapping off their ribbons during celebrations during the first week of the Milan Cortina Games, including one by U.S. gold medalist downhill skier Breezy Johnson.
“Don’t jump in them. I was jumping in excitement, and it broke,” Johnson said after her victory Sunday. “I’m sure somebody will fix it. It’s not crazy broken, but a little broken.”
U.S. figure skater Alysa Liu also posted a video Monday on social media of her team event gold medal separated from its ribbon.
“My medal don’t need the ribbon,” Liu wrote.
Andrea Francisi, the chief games operations officer for the organizing committee of the Milan Cortina Games, said the committee is working on fixing the issue.
“We are aware of the situation. We have seen the images. Obviously we are trying to understand in detail if there is a problem,” Francisi said Monday.
2026 WINTER OLYMPICS
“But obviously we are paying maximum attention to this matter, as the medal is the dream of the athletes, so we want that obviously in the moment they are given it that everything is absolutely perfect, because we really consider it to be the most important moment. So we are working on it.”
There were other instances of breaking medals, including German TV showing biathlon mixed relay bronze medalist Justus Strelow’s medal dropping to the floor while celebrating with his teammates.
“Hey Olympics, what’s up with those medals?” the German biathlon team said on an Instagram post. “Are they not meant to be celebrated?”
This problem comes after issues at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, with some medals needing to be replaced after several athletes complained their hardware was tarnished or corroded.
By February 2025, more than 200 requests were placed to replace medals from Paris 2024, according to reports.
