2024 Paris Olympics

Are medals awarded during the Paris 2024 Olympics losing their luster?

French swimmer Yohann Ndoye Brouard is the latest athlete to show off his Olympic prize, with a fair amount of wear after four months.

Share
Paris 2024
Getty

This photograph taken on January 30, 2024 in Paris shows the upcoming Paris 2024 Olympics gold medal designed by Fench luxury jewellery house Chaumet. On the medals’ head side, the engraved figures of the goddess of victory Athena, Nike, the Panathenaic stadium and the Acropolis are imposed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) but Paris 2024 has obtained exceptional authorization to add the design of the Eiffel Tower, and use 18 grams of Eiffel Tower metal on each medal, extracted from pieces of the tower. (Photo by Thomas SAMSON / AFP) (Photo by THOMAS SAMSON/AFP via Getty Images)

Bronze-winning Olympic French swimmer Yohann Ndoye-Brouard wondered over the weekend if a medal he captured is from this past summer or 100 years ago?

That's because the bronze he won in the 4x100-meter medley relay during the Paris 2024 Games seems to be deteriorating faster than a Léon Marchand lap.

He rhetorically questioned on social media if his medal was from 2024 or 1924, with crying emojis.

Ndoye-Brouard is the latest Paris 2024 Olympian to gently complain that their prized mementos are losing their shine four months after the Games.

The French newspaper Le Méridional on Saturday published a picture of the bronze won by Ndoye-Brouard 's 4x100 medley teammate Clement Secchi, whose medal also appeared to be quickly losing its luster.

The medal's rough edges made it look more like another water-loving creature, “Peau de crocodile," according to Secchi.

U.S. rugby player and social media star Ilona Maher gave the world one the first clues some medals could be less than Olympic quality when she appeared on NBC's "Late Night with Seth Meyers" on Aug. 12, shortly after closing ceremonies.

She whipped out the bronze that she and her teammates won in a stunning victory over powerhouse Australia.

"It's gorgeous (but) it is wearing a little bit," Maher said, her right index finger swirling the edges of the medal. "It's a solid hunk of metal, it's a great piece of metal."

Team USA rugby Olympian Ilona Maher during an interview with host Seth Meyers on Aug. 12, 2024.
Team USA rugby Olympian Ilona Maher during an interview with host Seth Meyers on Aug. 12.Lloyd Bishop / NBC

Representatives of the International Olympic Committee and Paris 2024 could not immediately be reached for comment Monday.

The medals awarded last summer each contain a small piece of iron from the famed Eiffel Tower, which has now stood over three Olympics (1900, 1924 and 2024).

This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News:

Copyright NBC News
Contact Us