European Union rules blamed for degrading Paris Olympic medals

France’s Clément Secchi was not happy with the state of his Paris 2024 bronze medal, describing its exterior as 'crocodile skin'. Photo / Instagram

A European Union chrome ban has been blamed for Paris Olympic Games medals cracking and crumbling.

Monnaie de Paris, the French mint, said medals were falling apart due to a varnish-related technical issue.

In just four months, more than 100 defective medals were returned by athletes who competed in the 2024 Games in the French capital.

British diver Yasmin Harper said her bronze medal was “discoloured” and “tarnishing”.

Bronze medals seemed to be worst.

American skateboarder Nyjah Huston showed a photo of his bronze medal on social media. He said it was “looking rough” and “starting to chip off a little” just weeks after he won it.

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Last month French swimmers Clément Secchi and Yohann Ndoye-Brouard showed their flaking medals on social media and Secchi compared them to “crocodile skin”.

Fencer Nick Itkin said his bronze medal had begun deteriorating a few days after the Olympics. “But after like a few weeks, it got more noticeable,” he said.

Olympic chiefs have pledged to replace the defective medals.

“Damaged medals will be systematically replaced by the Monnaie de Paris and engraved in an identical way to the originals,” the International Olympic Committee said.

Each medal took 15 days to make. The design was stamped out before it was dipped in gold, bronze or silver and then finished with a coat of varnish.

La Lettre, a French industry newspaper, said the mint had been caught out by a change in EU regulation that banned chromium trioxide, which it used in its varnishes.

Chromium trioxide is a toxic material used to coat metal and stop it from rusting.

The EU ban on the carcinogen came into force in September 2024.

According to La Lettre, the mint had to replace the chromium trioxide at short notice and did not have enough time to run tests on the new, weaker coating.

The mint is the world’s oldest continually running mint in the world and was founded in 864.

A spokesperson declined to confirm the report by La Lettre. The mint said it “has modified the varnish and optimised its manufacturing process to make it more resistant to certain uses observed of the medals by athletes”.

Medals have had to be replaced in other Olympics, notably after the Rio Games.

The New York Times said the tarnishing medals were a particular embarrassment for LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton. The luxury goods empire owned by France’s richest family was the Paris Olympics’ biggest corporate sponsor.

The medals were designed by Chaumet, a luxury jewellery and watchmaker and part of the LVMH group, which makes Louis Vuitton handbags.

A spokesman told the New York Times it did not make the medals and had no comment.

Chaumet designed the medals in top-secret conditions before they were approved for production by the mint by a special committee of Olympic officials and athletes. At the time, bronze medals were said to be the “most difficult” because they were the most delicate.