According to reporting by Oregon Public Broadcasting, several athletes at this year's Milan Winter Olympics found their medals falling apart in their hands. US skier Breezy Johnson won gold and promptly warned fellow medallists not to jump for joy wearing theirs. German biathlete Justus Strelow's medal came loose on camera, going viral for all the wrong reasons. Swedish cross-country skier Ebba Andersson' silver medal broke clean in two when it dropped in the snow.
The medals, it turns out, had a clip mechanism designed to snap free if the ribbon was pulled forcefully. Whether that safety feature was the culprit, or whether some medals simply had a manufacturing defect causing clips to sit fractionally too loose in their housings, remains unclear.
