Ioc Replaces Swimmer's Medals Destroyed In La Fires

Olympic champion swimmer Gary Hall Jr has been presented pinch replicas of nan 10 medals he won crossed 3 Games aft nan originals were destroyed during nan Los Angeles wildfires.

The 50-year-old American received nan medals from International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach during a ceremonial successful Lausanne.

"Thank you for nan medals," Hall Jr said. "Never earlier person 10 Olympic medals been replaced, astir apt because nary 1 has mislaid 10 medals before.

"I will do a amended occupation astatine taking attraction of these.

"The realisation done this process, that outweighs immoderate consciousness of loss, is this connection solidarity and what it means, which cannot beryllium taken away."

Hall won 5 gold, 3 metallic and 2 bronze medals while competing for nan United States astatine nan 1996, 2000 and 2004 Olympic Games successful Atlanta, Sydney and Athens respectively.

But arsenic nan wildfires that killed astatine slightest 29 group and destroyed ample areas of Los Angeles took clasp successful January, he was forced to wantonness his Pacific Palisades location and time off nan medals behind.

"When we were reference your tragic communicative of losing your location and each your possessions and each your worldly properties, this was going consecutive to our heart," Bach said.

Los Angeles will big nan adjacent summertime Olympics successful 2028.