An Olympian has left fans speechless after revealing the state of his medal after just one week of winning it.
Nyjah Huston managed to secure himself a bronze medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics while representing the United States in skateboarding.
Huston finished behind Japan’s Yuto Horigome and fellow Team USA member Jagger Eaton in the men’s street final.
But only one week after standing proud on the podium, Huston took to Instagram to show fans the condition of his most prized possession, stating that he thought the medal would be much better quality.
In a video showing scuffs and discoloring on his bronze medal, the athlete said: “Alright, so the medals look great when they are brand new. But they look worse after I let them sit on my skin with some sweat for a little while and let my friends wear them over the weekend.”
He then noted that the quality of the piece was not great, stating: “They are apparently not as high quality as you would think. I mean look at that thing, it is looking rough. Even the front is starting to chip off a little so I think the Olympic medals need to step up the quality a little bit.”
The video immediately went viral across multiple platforms including X (formerly Twitter), with this one user commenting: “That’s a real shame.”
“Next thing you know they gonna give you NFTs for medals,” added another.
However, others had seemingly reasonable explanations for it, with one person stating that “this is what bronze does”, while another X-user wondered if they were originally “silver-plated” and then colored.
After this became a hot talking point online, a spokesperson for the Paris Olympics has finally addressed the issue.
“Paris 2024 is aware of a social media report from an athlete whose medal is showing damage a few days after it was awarded,” they said in a statement to the Daily Mail. “Paris 2024 is working closely with the Monnaie de Paris, the institution tasked with the production and quality control of the medals, and together with the National Olympic Committee of the athlete concerned, in order to appraise the medal to understand the circumstances and cause of the damage.
“The medals are the most coveted objects of the Games and the most precious for the athletes. Damaged medals will be systematically replaced by the Monnaie de Paris and engraved in an identical way to the originals,” they added.
Hopefully, Huston will be one of the first in line to get his replaced.