Athletes put in a lifetime’s worth of work for a chance at winning an Olympic medal. Then, when that dream-like moment finally materializes, that medal…breaks? That’s been one of the early headlines from the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics, where multiple Olympians experienced their medals f alling apart not long after getting their hands on it. It first went viral with U.S. alpine skier Breezy Johnson, who said her medal, the first of her Olympic career, broke hours later while celebrating the downhill gold triumph. The medal had separated from the ribbon. “Don’t jump in them. I was jumping in excitement, and it broke,” Johnson said after her win Sunday. “I’m sure somebody will fix it. It’s not crazy broken, but a little broken.” Gold medalist USA’s Breezy Johnson shows her broken medal to the media following the Women’s Alpine Downhill Skiing at the Tofane Alpine Skiing Centre, Cortina d’Ampezzo, on day two of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics. Picture date: Sunday Feb. 8, 2026. “I may have set the record for shortest-lived Olympic medal,” Johnson said with a laugh. She eventually received a new medal as a replacement. But she wasn’t the only athlete to experience the problem. Later, fellow U.S. Olympian Alysa Liu posted a video on TikTok titled, “My medal don’t need the ribbon.” The video showed the gold medal and ribbon, once again, separated. It was the 20-year-old’s first Olympic medal, too, as she helped Team USA place first in the figure skating team event. Additionally, TV footage in Germany captured the moment German biathlete Justus Strelow realized the bronze he’d won Sunday had fallen off the ribbon around his neck and dropped on the floor as he celebrated with his teammates. Strelow tried to reattach the pieces during the celebrations, but to no success. MORE MILAN CORTINA OLYMPICS COVERAGE 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics Feb 8 Did Team USA's first gold medal really break? 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics Feb 8 Breezy Johnson wins downhill gold for Team USA's first medal of Milan Cortina 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics Feb 4 These countries have the most Winter Olympic medals entering Milan Cortina In a positive response, the Milan Cortina Olympics Committee said it is already working on a solution. “We are aware of the situation, we have seen the images. Obviously we are trying to understand in detail if there is a problem,” Andrea Francisi, the chief games operations officer of the committee, said Monday. “But obviously we are paying maximum attention to this matter, as the medal is the dream of the athletes, so we want that obviously in the moment they are given it that everything is absolutely perfect, because we really consider it to be the most important moment. So we are working on it.” It’s the second straight Olympics in which medal issues became a notable headline. During the 2024 Paris Summer Games, over 100 athletes needed new medals to replace their originals after noticing how quickly the quality deteriorated. Some athletes compared the deteriorated medals to “crocodile skin” or dating them back to 1924. The French mint eventually produced new ones but declined to say how many specifically. The Associated Press contributed to this story. This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser. ...read more read less