Chinese gymnast Zhu Xueying has claimed her gold medal is peeling, saying she originally thought the small mark was dirt - only to find the defect 'got bigger' when she rubbed it.
Xueying, 23, won gold in trampoline gymnastics at the Tokyo Olympics this year, with fellow Chinese medallist Liu Lingling taking silver and Great Britain's Bryony Page coming out of the tournament with bronze.
But less than a month after the Olympics wrapped up, Xueying is claiming her shiny medal has already started losing its golden colour, saying it is 'peeling'.
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Taking to social media site Weibo, she wrote: "#olympic-medal Was your medal ... peeling off like this?"
According to the Global Times, in a later post she 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 (like pic one) 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."
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The Tokyo Olympic Games' Organizing Committee has denied the 'quality' put forward by Xueying, telling the Global Times the material coming off the gymnast's medal was its protective coating, rather than the actual gold plating.
The Committee added that this coating is intended to protect the medals from stains and scratches and 'does not affect the quality of the medal itself'.
Japan Mint, which made the Tokyo Olympics' medals, also told the Global Times it has yet to find any problems with gold-medal peeling.
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However, it said the Tokyo Organizing Committee may still open an investigation into the matter.
This year's medals contained metal from recycled electronic devices, as part of the Tokyo 2020 Medal Project.
According to the Tokyo Olympics website, 32kg of gold was collected in the scheme, along with 3,500kg of silver and 2,200kg of bronze.
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It explains: "In the two years between April 2017 and March 2019, 100 percent of the metals required to manufacture the approximately 5,000 gold, silver and bronze medals were extracted from small electronic devices contributed by people from all over Japan.
"Every single medal to be awarded to athletes during the Tokyo 2020 Games is made from recycled metals.
"We are grateful for everyone's cooperation on this project. We hope that our project of recycling small consumer electronics and our efforts to contribute to an environmentally-friendly and sustainable society will form part of the legacy of the Tokyo 2020 Games."
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Featured Image Credit: PA
Topics: World News, News, Tokyo Olympics, China