‘Don’t jump in them': Olympic athletes’ medals break during celebrations

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MILAN (AP) — Handle with care. That’s the message from gold medalist Breezy Johnson at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics after she and other athletes found their medals broke within hours.

Olympic organizers are investigating with “maximum attention” after a spate of medals fell off their ribbons during celebrations on the opening weekend of the Games.

“Don’t jump in them. I was jumping in excitement and it broke,” women’s downhill ski gold medalist Johnson said after her win Sunday. “I’m sure somebody will fix it. It’s not crazy broken but a little broken.”

Johnson didn’t have to wait long for a replacement. By the time she reached the starting hill for Tuesday’s combined team event she’d already been given a new one, though it still needs to be engraved.

Asked if she got to keep the busted one, Johnson shook her head.

“They don’t, like, let you have multiple of those things,” she said with a laugh.

TV footage broadcast in Germany captured the moment biathlete Justus Strelow realized the mixed relay bronze he’d won Sunday had fallen off the ribbon around his neck and clattered to the floor as he danced along to a song with teammates.

His German teammates cheered as Strelow tried without success to reattach the medal before realizing a smaller piece, seemingly the clasp, had broken off and was still on the floor.

U.S. figure skater Alysa Liu posted a clip on social media of her team event gold medal detached from its official ribbon.

“My medal don’t need the ribbon,” Liu wrote early Monday.

Andrea Francisi, the chief games operations officer for the Milan Cortina organizing committee, said it was working on a solution.

“We are aware of the situation, we have seen the images. We are trying to understand in detail if there is a problem,” Francisi said Monday.

“But we are paying maximum attention to this matter, as the medal is the dream of the athletes, so we want that 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.”

It isn’t the first time the quality of Olympic medals has come under scrutiny.

Following the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, some medals had to be replaced after athletes complained they were starting to tarnish or corrode, giving them a mottled look likened to crocodile skin.

AP Sports Writer Daniella Matar in Milan and Andrew Dampf in Cortina D’Ampezzo, Italy, contributed to this report.