The 2024 Paris Olympics and Paralympics medals consisted of a piece of history. Imagine returning to your country with an Olympic medal, embellished with a hexagon-shaped piece of the original Eiffel Tower iron. The metal was preserved during the 20th-century renovations and it is a piece of history that is present in the medals of athletes from around the world. Team USA’s Hunter Woodhall and Tara Davis-Woodhall are two such athletes.

Hunter Woodhall and Tara Davis-Woodhall, the husband and wife duo, made a lot of waves during the Olympics and Paralympics. The couple won gold medals in their categories of 400-meter T62 and long jumping and shocked the world with their athletic ability. But now, months after the Olympics ended, the couple seems to be in the news again for an unfortunate reason, which has been plaguing quite a lot of athletes who won medals in the Paris Games.

On November 23, Hunter Woodhall uploaded a reel about how he may have accidentally damaged it. What did he say?

Hunter said, “You guys may have seen the bronze medal on social media that are tarnishing on the edges, but here’s the problem I have with the gold medal. I did this myself, so it’s totally my fault, but I would wrap the ribbon around it, right? I did that, and the edge right here caught on the ribbon. Look how sharp this is; it went all the way up here. Don’t wrap the ribbon around the medal.”

But Tara Davis-Woodhall, who was seen slowly creeping up into the video, had another advice to give. “No, don’t wrap it if it is damaged on the bottom,” she stated. The couple then also commented on the reel for their common Instagram account, ‘The Woodhalls’, and wrote, “Rip to the ribbon.”

Coming back to the video, after narrating this whole incident, they took a look at Tara’s gold medal. Did her medal have a similar issue?

“Mine is just peeling,” she said, while also pointing out a few scratches. Hunter Woodhall was in complete agreement with his wife. However, they are not at all the only people to face this problem, as there are many other Olympians who won medals in Paris and are going through the same thing.

Other Paris Olympic medal winners have been facing similar problems…

Numerous athletes have complained about the quality of the Olympic medals being below par. One of the first cases of this was reported by Nyjah Huston, who won the bronze medal in skateboarding on July 29. But by August 8, his medal was already damaged and had shown signs of wearing out.

“Alright, so these Olympic medals look great when they are brand new, but after letting them sit on my skin with some sweat for a little bit and then letting my friends wear it over the weekend, they are apparently not as high quality as you would think,” he wrote in an Instagram story.

Another athlete who reported damages quite early was the UK’s Yasmin Harper, who won the bronze in women’s springboarding.

Within days of her victory, the metal had started already losing its color and shine. According to her, the medal becomes discolored quickly. “I think it’s water or anything that gets under metal, it’s making it go a little bit discolored, but I’m not sure.”

This caused a lot of heat upon the International Olympics Committee in the month of August, and they had to come out with a statement saying that they are “working closely with the Paris Mint and with the National Olympic Committee of the athlete concerned in order to examine the medal in question to understand the circumstances and the cause of the damage.”

They also promised to try to replace some of the damaged medals of the athletes. Well, there doesn’t seem to have been any update on whether or not this promise was kept. But one can only hope for a swift resolution on this matter, as a medal is a huge part of any athlete’s Olympic career.

Do you think the medals should be made with better-quality materials? Let us know in the comments below.