Olympic medals are incredibly valuable but the mementos given out to athletes at the Winter Games have been plagued by issues - including the items continuing to break.
As per The Independent, the medals for the Milan-Cortina showpiece have two textures - one frosted and one polished - and a design which includes “discs of ice” and the Olympic and Paralympic symbols in the middle.
For athletes, a medal of any kind instantly becomes one of their most prized possessions and an item they will cherish forever.
But this year many have already experienced problems - with Team USA athletes athletes Breezy Johnson and Alysa Liu seeing their ribbons come away instantly after the presentation.
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"So there's the medal. And there's the ribbon," Johnson said, as per the BBC.
"And here's the little piece that is supposed to go into the ribbon to hold the medal, and yeah, it came apart."
Liu, who bagged gold in the figure skating team event with the USA, had the same problem and posted a video which said, "My medal don't need the ribbon".
Elsewhere, Justus Strelow of Germany saw his bronze medal crack on the floor during a team party and Swedish cross-country skier Ebba Andersson claimed her medal “fell in the snow and broke in two”.
How much are gold medals worth?
According to a report from CBS, currently guidelines from the International Olympic Committee state that gold medals only requires at least 92.5% silver and are no longer solid gold.
In fact, a solid gold medal has not been handed out for more than 100 years since the 1912 Summer Olympic Games in Sweden.
Nowadays, the gold medals include 500 grams of silver plated with six grams of pure gold, with silver medals purely made of purely 500 grams of silver and bronze medals, which are a littler lighter at 420 grams, remaining solid bronze.
Going off mineral contents, the melt value of an Olympic gold medal is said to be around £1,800 after the price of gold increased to £3,700 per ounce.
Worked off the 0.2 ounces of gold present, the value of the gold is believed to be $740. Silver is the dominant component of the gold medals and is priced at about £60 an ounce - meaning its presence in the gold medal is worth about £1,070 to give an overall components value of £1,810.
What have the Olympics chiefs said about medal issues?
The 2024 Olympics in Paris was dominated by a series of medal problems, with 220 requests to replace medals because of damage done by February 2025.
That has carried on into the Winter showpiece, with organisers well aware and promising to rectify the issues as soon as they find out the exact cause.
Andrea Francisi, the chief Games operations officer, said: “We are fully aware of the situation and you have seen the pictures. We are looking into what exactly the problem is. We will pay maximum attention to the medals so that everything will be perfect because this is one of the most important things for the athletes.”
Topics: Olympics
Josh Lawless