STOLEN GOLD MEDAL RETURNED TO OLYMPIAN

Maria Carrillo stepped outside the back door of her office to walk her two dogs one evening when she noticed a plastic fast-food bag had been dumped on her property.

When she picked up the McDonald's bag, it felt heavy and she thought there might be a rock inside.

She opened it and saw an object gleaming in the middle of the crinkled hamburger wrappers and empty french-fry boxes. It looked exactly like an Olympic gold medal.

She pulled it out and saw the words Games of the XXXII Olympiad Tokyo 2020, as well as the five Olympic rings and the Greek goddess Nike.

My first thought was, ‘This is so beautiful — is it for real?' she said about her June 27 discovery.

The discarded medal and the red, white and blue ribbon attached to it were in excellent condition, Carrillo said.

She phoned her husband, Noe Hernandez, 49, who runs Noel Barber Shop nearby, and he told her that the medal was likely fake. Carrillo decided to hurry over to his shop so he could see it. To her, it looked real.

Noe has a friend who works for the police department, and it turned out he was coming in for a haircut, Carrillo said. As soon as [the officer] saw it, he told my husband it was real and that it had been stolen.

We were like, ‘Oh my God, this is really somebody's Olympic gold,' added Hernandez.

Police checked their files and told the couple that the gold medal belonged to Jordyn Poulter, the starting setter of the 2020 U.S. Women's Volleyball Team. On May 25, she had reported it stolen from her car while it was parked in her garage in Anaheim.

Poulter said she had mistakenly left it there one day after she had been carrying it around with her to show it to friends.

Poulter and her teammates won the medal in the Summer Olympics after they beat longtime rival Brazil, and took home Olympic gold for the first time in the team's history.

I thought my medal was long gone, Poulter added. I made peace with the fact that I'd probably never see it again.

To me, my medal was priceless, she said.

I'm thinking I'll send [the medal] home to my parents' house in Denver and let them look after it, said Poulter.

As for Carrillo, she said she won't look at a bag of trash in quite the same way again.

To read the complete article, see:
Out walking her dogs, she found an Olympic gold medal on the ground (https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/07/07/olympic-gold-medal-volleyball-poulter/)

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