• Yawweee877h444@lemmy.world
    19125·
    3 months ago

    Sounds right to me.

    This is capitalism. The goal of the Olympics is to make money on advertising, not to give nice expensive rewards to the athletes. The athletes are tools to make money for rich people. TV, advertising, sponsors.

    The cheap metal serves its purpose. It looks nice initially for a few days while the winners take pictures. After that it doesn’t matter.

      • jawa21@lemmy.sdf.org
        37·
        3 months ago

        The US Olympians used to have to pay tax on their earnings from winnings until 2016 when Obama changed that by preventing the IRS from collecting taxes on those awards.

        • Cethin@lemmy.zipEnglish
          73·
          3 months ago

          Maybe unpopular opinion, but they should still. Why should it be tax exempt? At the end of the day, it’s not enough money to worry about so it doesn’t really matter. They aren’t doing charity or anything though, just work that happens to be a sport and at a very high level. If we tax the rich just a tiny bit more it brings in far more tax money though, so I’d focus on that instead.

          • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
            47·
            3 months ago

            Maybe they should tax it if they sell the award. Else the athletes need to pay to put their prize in their prize closet.

        • blandfordforever@lemm.ee
          183·
          3 months ago

          I SAID, IM PRETTY SURE THEY MAKE THE ATHETES PAY FOR THE MEDALS TOO! WHAT A RIPOFF!

          But after searching for this info on the internet, I’m finding that I could be just entirely wrong about this.

          • SynopsisTantilize@lemm.ee
            2·
            3 months ago

            Unless they make the sponsors pay and also like a lump sum of money from the sponsors to the athletes I don’t see that as a good idea.

    • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
      82·
      3 months ago

      To be fair, a lot of athletes are also looking for advertising deals from being in the Olympics.

  • Jo Miran@lemmy.ml
    108·
    3 months ago

    *After reading the article*

    Patina is one thing but the front chipping is nuts.

      • Jo Miran@lemmy.ml
        20·
        3 months ago

        I have had $10 jewelery from K-Mart that never chipped no matter what abuse I put it through.

      • AnyOldName3@lemmy.world
        65·
        3 months ago

        You can bite into lead. You can’t bite into gold, silver and bronze. That’s why it used to be a test for fake coins. If the chips are bite marks, the metal’s really low grade. Biting into Gold and Silver is even easier.

        • vithigar@lemmy.ca
          17·
          3 months ago

          You have it backwards. Gold is extremely malleable and you can easily leave marks in pure gold by biting it.

          • AnyOldName3@lemmy.world
            1·
            3 months ago

            Yep, I’ve since looked it up, and it’s apparently the most malleable metal, with Silver coming second. To be fair, Lead is pretty malleable, too, and you can leave bite marks in it if you put it in your mouth.

  • Chozo@fedia.io
    731·
    3 months ago

    Do they not coat or treat the medals in some way to prevent this from happening, or is this just some weird fluke with this one medal? For all the egregious ways the IOC wastes money, I feel like the actual medals, themselves, would be one of the last places they’d cut corners.

  • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
    60·
    3 months ago

    Maybe bronze is a pretty complicated metal to work with. Humanity has only been using it for what, five thousand years, give or take several centuries? We probably just need to gain more experience with it before they’ll come out looking as good as our stone medals.

  • Laereht@lemmy.world
    60·
    3 months ago

    Did all the competitors understand that they were striving for chocolate medals? Seems a bit like a weird choice to me.

  • Krauerking@lemy.lol
    592·
    3 months ago

    Dang… Probably has that same sorta crumbly over porous texture of costume jewelry that was just plated.

    France bragged this was the cheapest Olympics I guess that was a promise fully kept in all areas.

  • teft@lemmy.world
    41·
    3 months ago

    I’d check their hand lotions for sulfur based compounds. The quick way to patina copper is with boiled egg yolks because they contain sulfur.

    But also why didn’t the IOC just throw on some clear coat?

      • HorreC@lemmy.world
        4·
        3 months ago

        Those are an AD, they are all the brand new samsung flip phone. Its only to show them with it in hand.

        • tyler@programming.dev
          1·
          3 months ago

          I wouldn’t have known it was a Samsung phone if you didn’t say anything… wasn’t a good ad until you mentioned it. I just thought it was a dumb selfie thing.

          • HorreC@lemmy.world
            2·
            3 months ago

            The only reason I saw it was all the ads plastered for it like every other ad break, thank what ever stars you live in an area that isnt just beating it into your skull every 5 min.

            • tyler@programming.dev
              2·
              3 months ago

              Oh I watched on CBC 😂. I ain’t watching on anything that has actual ads (there’s ads, but they’re Canadian)

      • Blackmist@feddit.ukEnglish
        2·
        3 months ago

        See, they install that TruCoat at the factory. There’s nothing we can do about that.

  • No1@aussie.zone
    26·
    3 months ago

    Grab a spray can and clear coat them as soon as they hang it around your neck lol