‘Like it's been to war’: Rusting medals tarnish French Olympic glory

French luxury company LVMH and the country’s national mint are in hot water after the 2024 Olympic medals they designed and produced have already started disintegrating – some as soon as a few days after athletes bagged them.

So far, around 100 defective medals have already been handed back.

The tarnishing medals have prompted a range of jokes from athletes and netizens, with some calling them “crocodile skin” or jesting that the medals are from “Paris 1924”, the last time the Olympic games were held in the French capital before the 2024 summer games.

Yohann Ndoye-Brouard, a French swimmer who secured a bronze medal, joked that his medal was actually from the Paris 1924 games once the coating on his medal was gradually stripped away.

Manu Bhaker, an Indian bronze-winning shooter, reported that the top coating came off 2-3 days after winning the medal.

“I feel that the Olympic medals are something to be cherished for life because a very big memory is associated with that medal,” Bhaker said while speaking to Indian media.

American skateboarder Nyjah Huston, who won bronze in the street skateboarding competition, posted a picture of his medal ten days after winning it, complaining about its quality.

"These Olympic medals look great when they're brand new, but after letting it sit on my skin with some sweat for a little bit and then letting my friends wear it over the weekend, they're apparently not as high quality as you would think," he said.

"It's looking rough. Even the front. It's starting to chip off a little." He added, “It looks like it's been to war”.

The International Olympic Committee has pledged to replace the defective medals – most of which appear to be bronze – over the coming weeks.

Chaumet, a luxury jeweller and watchhouse owned by LVMH, designed and produced the much-sought-after Olympic medals.

Chaumet, who had never designed a sports medal before, reportedly ran into issues designing the bronze medal because it was the trickiest metal to work with out of gold and silver.

Chaumet and its corporate parent LVMH deny responsibility, saying they only designed the medals but didn’t produce them.

They are not wrong – the medals were produced by France’s national mint Monnaie de Paris, which has taken responsibility for the shoddy work, blaming the deficiencies on a defective varnish.

The medals "had to bear the brunt of the new products used" as new regulations banned a component of the varnish previously employed and "had to be replaced at short notice", according to French industry media La Lettre.

This involved removing chromium trioxide, a toxic chemical added to varnishes to prevent rusting. Its replacement varnish, reportedly a secret, to prevent oxidisation was defective.

The gold medals created for the Paris Games are 92.5 percent silver with six grams of gold and the silvers have the same silver composition but minus the gold. The bronze medals are composed of bronze, an alloy of copper, tin and zinc.

Despite this, LVMH and Chaumet’s publicity tells a different story.

LVMH has been seen heavily in the public eye in France in 2024, especially as a high-profile sponsor of the Paris 2024 Olympics. The company crafted custom display cases for 5,000 medals and the Olympic torch in an effort to showcase its artistry and precision.

Prior to the games, LVMH heavily marketed how Chaumet’s artisans composed the medals as part of a clandestine project over a year, embedding a piece of the iconic Eiffel Tower at the heart of each medal.

LVMH has recently increasingly used mass sports, like sponsoring the Paris 2024 games or buying football club Paris FC, to reach more customers while simultaneously providing products.

With LVMH offering no comment thus far and attempting to distance itself from the defective medals it once appeared to be so proud of, the medal fiasco threatens to tarnish its image.