Thanks to the deterioration of Olympic medals, the field of metallurgy, which in recent years has tended to call itself “materials science“, is having a shining moment in the sun. La Lettre reports [here machine -translated into English]:
Investigation
How the Paris Mint fell off the podium with its Olympic medals
According to information from La Lettre, more than 100 defective medals have been returned by disgruntled athletes. In the midst of the crisis, the Monnaie de Paris has ousted its three production and quality directors, without managing to find a technical solution for the moment.
Published on 01/13/2025 at 6:20 a.m
The problems with cracks on the Olympic medals of the Monnaie de Paris , revealed by La Lettre even before the Paris Olympics (LL of 01/29/24 ), are causing a certain feverishness at the top of the organization chart. According to our information, the CEO of the prestigious institution, Marc Schwartz , has just urgently sacrificed the three main heads of his production.
Its industrial director Jacky Frehel announced at the end of November that he would be leaving at the end of January. Éric Matte , the production director of the Paris site responsible for manufacturing Olympic medals, has not appeared at the establishment since October 2, although he was supposed to take part in meetings the following day. The head of quality, health, safety and environment, Hélène Juton , for her part, deserted her office the same month, before announcing her departure on December 13….
RELEVANT HISTORICAL PAPER: For insight on the general problem of deteriorating medals, see “You mean it’s supposed to look like that?” by Pippa Pierce, Medal, vol. 58, 2011.