More than 100 damaged medals have been returned, there is a crisis at the Monnaie de Paris

Just a few days after the end of the Paris Olympics, some athletes expressed their disappointment at seeing their medals deteriorate at high speed. Street skateboarding bronze medalist Nyjayh Huston, for example, was surprised that his award “gives the impression of having just returned from the war”. Obviously, the months that have passed since this summer have not improved things, and the Paris Mint, responsible for manufacturing, today finds itself in a difficult situation, reports an investigation by The Letter.

The controversy over the quality of the medals, particularly those of bronze, was relaunched at the end of December with the publications of French swimmers Clément Secchi and Yohann Ndoye Brouard on their social networks. The first showed his chipped medal in an Instagram story, accompanied by the caption “Crocodile skin”. The second responded ironically with photos of his own and the comment “Paris 1924”.

Alerted for a long time, the Organizing Committee of the Games announced that all damaged medals would be “systematically replaced”. You still need to understand where the problem comes from, and find the solution so that the quality of the charms no longer deteriorates.

This is all the work currently being done at the Monnaie de Paris, so explains The Letter in an article published this Monday. The venerable national monetary institution is experiencing a snub, and it would blow hard at certain levels of management. According to the digital daily, CEO Marc Schwartz “has just urgently sacrificed the three main heads of his production”: industrial director Jacky Frehel, production director of the Paris site responsible for manufacturing Olympic medals Éric Matte, and the head of quality, health, safety and environment Hélène Juton.

Varnish problem

At the same time, the technical teams are working on resolving the problem. Originally, it was a defective varnish, of which the Monnaie de Paris had been aware “for at least fifteen months, well before the start of the Olympic Games”, reveals The Letter. It is in fact the implementation of a revision of the European Reach directive (registration, evaluation and authorization of chemicals) which would have been poorly anticipated. Chromium trioxide, used by the Parisian institution to make its varnishes, was banned, and the latter was taken by surprise to find a reliable replacement solution.

The medal workshop of the Monnaie de Paris is now supported by a Lyon company specializing in industrial processes and surface treatments to resolve the problem. To date, more than 100 medals have already been returned, according to The Letter. Asked by the daily, the International Olympic Committee indicated that they would all be replaced “in the coming weeks”.