Zhu Xueying – Gold medal

Olympic winners in the Tokyo 2020 Games claim their medals are starting to peel.

Only weeks after being honoured at the Games a few competitors have complained the shine is coming off their achievements.

The gold, silver and bronze medals were all made from re-cycled electronics metal.

However, China’s Zhu Xueying, who won gold in the women’s trampoline gymnastics, has posted pictures of her medal starting to peel.

She added:

“Can your medals … peel off too?”

She later added:

“Let me clarify this… I didn’t mean to peel the thing off at first, I just discovered that there was a small mark on my medal.

“I thought that it was probably just dirt, so I rubbed it with my finger and found that nothing changed, so then I picked at it and the mark got bigger.”

The Tokyo Olympic Games’ Organising Committee explained the peeling was not the gold plating but a protective coating which stops it from picking up scratches.

“Even if you remove the coating, it does not directly affect the medals’ quality,” the statement added.

Over two years more than 79,000 tons of electrical appliances were collected by the games’ organisers before being smelted and turned into medals.