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High jumper Yasmin Harper, who claimed Britain’s first medal at the Paris Olympics, has admitted her bronze is already “fading”.
Harper won bronze in the women’s 3m synchronised springboard alongside Scarlett Mew Jensen. She returned to compete in the women’s 3m synchronised springboard final on Friday, but did not add another medal to her tally.
Harper was then asked about the quality of the medals after a member of the U.S. skate team criticized the quality of the medals after her bronze began to deteriorate.
“The medals… I have to admit, yes, they have some stains, a little bit of tarnish,” Harper said. “Yeah, I’ve seen mine. A little bit of tarnish. I don’t know, I think it’s like water or anything that gets on the metal will discolor it a little bit.”
Asked if the deterioration bothered Harper, he said: “No, because it’s still a medal.”
American skater Nyjah Huston first revealed the markedly different state of his medal just a week after winning it in Paris, with the back of the medal chipped and losing its bronze colour.
“The Olympic medals are apparently not of the quality one might think,” he added. “They have a rough look.
“I don’t know, the Olympic medals, we have to improve the quality a bit. It seems like the medal went to war and came back.”
Each medal awarded at these Olympic Games, including the silver and bronze medals, contains a piece of the Eiffel Tower preserved during the renovations of this historic Parisian monument.
Each one forms an 18 gram hexagon in the center of each medal, and on the back is the Greek goddess of victory, Nike.
In total, the Paris Mint produced just over 5,000 medals, of which 2,600 were for the Olympic Games and 2,400 for the Paralympics. Each one weighs around 530 grams and was designed by luxury brand Chaumet, which provides a dark blue box to try to preserve its medals.
There has been some discussion about the size of the medals at the Paris Games, but the size has been standardised since London 2012 and each Summer Games medal measures exactly 85mm in diameter.
