How Much Money Olympic Gold Medal is Worth Revealed After Breaking on Alysa Liu, Jutta Leerdam, More

The medals at the 2026 Milano Cortina Olympics may be breaking on some athletes, but they are still worth quite a lot of money.

A CBS News story from earlier this month revealed that the "melt value" of this year's Olympic gold medals is worth approximately $2,500 but can change depending on the costs of gold and silver in a given moment.

Notably, the gold medals are not made of solid gold and haven't been since the 1912 Games. The gold medals are currently required to consist of at least 92.5% silver, and the 2026 ones feature 500 grams of silver plated with six grams of pure gold.

The bronze ones are solid bronze, while the silver ones contain 500 grams of silver and no gold plating.

Yet the medals have been making headlines for other reasons, as Emily Blackwood of People noted Saturday that figure skater Alysa Liu, alpine skier Breezy Johnson, speed skater Jutta Leerdam, alpine skier Jackie Wiles, cross‑country skier Ebba Andersson and biathlete Justus Strelow are among those who have seen their medals break.

The Guardian reported the cords included a breakaway mechanism if pulled forcefully, although a spokesperson for the Olympics said the committee found a solution and put in "a targeted fix."

American skier Mikaela Shiffrin appeared on Not Gonna Lie with Kylie Kelce (20:10 mark) and joked about her gold medal not breaking, saying, "Each day I'm like testing it a little bit more to see if it breaks. ... It hasn't broken yet."

She also said maybe she needs to jump more like Liu did in her celebration after taking home the gold in the women's singles figure skating competition.

The athletes all seem to have a good sense of humor about the situation, and they are surely thrilled they will forever be Olympic medalists even if there were some technical issues with a handful of the medals.