An Olympic skateboarder has urged Games organisers to “step up the quality a bit” after showing his tarnished medal, just days after he won it.

Team USA skateboarder Nyjah Huston took home his first Olympic medal, a bronze in the men’s street competition in Paris, after a nail-biting final last Monday.

The gold medal wen to Japan’s Yuto Horigome while Huston’s US teammate Jagger Eaton grabbed silver.

Now back home in the US, the 29-year-old skateboarding legend took to Instagram on Thursday (local time) to show the state of his prized possession.

“They look great when they’re brand new, but after letting it sit on my skin with some sweat for lil’ bit and letting my friends wear it over the weekend, they’re apparently not as high quality as you would think,” Huston said in a video posted to his Instagram.

He even held the medal up to the camera to show off its shop-worn look.

“Look at that thing – it’s looking rough. Even the front is starting to chip off a little,” he said.

“I don’t know… Olympic medals, we gotta step up the quality a little bit.”

Huston shared close-ups of his battered bronze medal. Photos: Instagram

Later Huston – a 15-time X Games gold medallist who was seventh in his first Olympics in Tokyo in 2021 and who also has numerous other medals across the X Games and world championships – also shared a message from a fan.

“Loooks like you won that thing in 1982,” the message read.

Famously, all of the medals awarded at the Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games contain a piece of original iron from the Eiffel Tower – preserved during renovations of the landmark. The Eiffel souvenir forms an 18-gram hexagon in the middle of every medal, which also have an image of the goddess of victory Nike on the back.

In Huston’s shots, the chunk of Eiffel iron appears to be the only untarnished element of his bronze medal.

“I guess medals are meant to be in cases,” Huston said.

The Paris Mint made more than 5000 medals for the Games – 2600 for the Olympics and 2400 for the Paralympics.

Oxford Economics estimated the value of a gold medal at more than $1500.