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Chinese Olympian Claims Her Gold Medal Is Peeling

Chinese Olympian Claims Her Gold Medal Is Peeling

Just a matter of weeks after returning home from Tokyo, Zhu​ Xueying took to social media to show off the alleged damage to her shiny medal.

Max Sherry

Max Sherry

Chinese Olympian Zhu Xueying reckons her gold medal is already peeling.

Yes, peeling.

Just a matter of weeks after returning home from Tokyo after clinching gold in the women's trampolining gymnastics event, Zhu took to social media to show off the alleged damage to her shiny medal.

"Can your medal... peel off like this?" she asked on popular social media platform Weibo along with photos of the medal itself.

Zhu Xueying.
PA

The 23-year-old insists she initially thought the glaring mark was just a spec of dirt, but the area eventually grew bigger.

"I then tried to scratch it with my nails and found that it 'peeled off'," she said in a video.

"I sent out the first Weibo post to see if any other athletes had the same experience."

The post instantly went viral and garnered almost 20,000 comments from fascinated and skeptical social media users.

Her bold claims have left fans stunned, although the Olympic Committee was quick to shut down the idea that it was actually peeling.

Weibo

Upon seeing Zhu's complaints, the sport's governing body wasted no time in reaching out to her to say that the apparent 'peeling' on the medal is instead a coating applied by manufacturers to protect it.

"Even if you remove the coating, it does not directly affect the medals' quality," the Tokyo Olympic Committee told the Global Times.

In other words, the medal is absolutely fine.

That said, if Zhu is still unhappy with the quality of her flashy gold, she can order a new one from the International Olympic Committee - for a not-so-small fee, of course.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the sporting body keeps moulds of all of the designs from every modern-era Olympic Game and will replace them if the athlete pleases.

But you'd be surprised to hear that the gold medals themselves aren't actually made from, well, much gold at all.

PA

It turns out they're actually made from mostly silver and are then coated in six grams of pure gold, bringing their weight to approximately 556 grams each.

The 2020 Games were slightly different though, as they medals were made from reused metals from electronic devices which were donated by the Japanese public - so yes, part of an old Nokia found in your bottom draw could be hanging round someone's neck right now.

Featured Image Credit: Weibo/PA

Topics: Medal, olympics, Tokyo Olympics, Gold Medal, Social Media, Australia, China