Olympic medals are among the most coveted prizes in sports. Athletes can spend decades in their pursuit, and only the greatest in the world succeed.
So it might be surprising to learn that after the sweat and tears, the triumph and glory, so many of these treasures tend to end up in the same unremarkable place: a sock drawer.
“My parents wanted me to get a safe for it, but that sounded ridiculous,” said Alex Hall, 27, a slopestyle skier, who stores his hard-won gold medal from the 2022 Games beneath a pile of socks and thermal underwear. “It hasn’t seen sunlight in a long time,” added Mr. Hall, who now needs to find space for the silver medal he won last week.
Mikaela Shiffrin, one of the greatest Alpine skiers of all time and the owner of three Olympic medals, is a sock drawer person. So is Ryan Lochte, whose 12 medals make him the second most decorated male swimmer in the history of the Games. The IKEA dresser drawer where Christopher Mazdzer keeps his 2018 silver medal holds not only assorted hosiery but also other important possessions like belts and ties.
“I have some sunglasses in there, too,” said Mr. Mazdzer, a luger.
Olympians claiming medals in Italy this week can hardly imagine letting them out of their sight. Danny O’Shea, an American figure skater, laughed when asked where he would keep the gold he won on Sunday in the team event.
“Around my neck for as long as possible,” he said.
But as time passes, this attachment can mellow into something resembling nonchalance.
“Every Olympian’s childhood dream was standing up there and getting a medal hung around their necks,” said Chris Fogt, who won a silver medal in bobsledding at the 2014 Games. “But after you get it, and you get a little older, it’s almost like the journey was more important.”
If an Olympian’s shimmering laurel is not tucked among socks, it might rest inside a desk or among assorted junk. Valerie Fleming, a former bobsledder, keeps her silver medal from 2006 in a drawer in her kitchen, or in her night stand. Mr. Fogt is a night stand user, too.
Explanations for these unglamorous storage solutions include accessibility, laziness and basic modesty. Many Olympians have neither the desire nor the means to set up the sorts of trophy rooms or shrines to themselves often seen in the homes of richer, more famous professional athletes.
“I’m just not like a showy, flashy type of person,” said Matt Antoine, a skeleton racer who has squirreled away his bronze medal from the 2014 Olympics in a sock drawer in his closet.
His medal does have a custom pouch, made by his mother, which represents an upgrade from its previous encasement: an actual sock.
In that, he was not alone. Others who keep medals inside socks include Oksana Masters, a Paralympian with 19 medals, and Jack Wallace, a two-time gold medalist in Paralympic hockey.
Jessie Diggins, who won a bronze medal last week in the 10-kilometer freestyle cross-country skiing event, keeps her previous three Olympic medals tucked inside a hat at her parents’ home. They are scuffed and scratched, she said, because she often lets children hold them.
That hints at another common reason for sock drawer storage: Many Olympians treat their medals as community assets to be shared and enjoyed by others. A sock drawer is always within reach.
“It could stay in a fancy case all our lives and be in immaculate condition,” said Tyler George, a gold medalist in curling at the 2018 Games. “But we wouldn’t get to share it with the literally thousands of people who get to see it and hold it and wear it.”
Some former sock drawer users have reconsidered.
Mr. Lochte sold three of his medals last month, claiming he “never swam for the gold medals” and calling them a “cherry on top” of his swimming career.
Mirai Nagasu, a figure skater who won a bronze medal in 2018, said she changed course last summer after a moment of “self-reflection.”
Ms. Nagasu grew up seeing the memorabilia of Michelle Kwan, a two-time figure skating medalist, at a rink where she trained and recalled how much it had inspired her. Last July, she donated her own medal to the Skating Club of Boston, hoping it might have a similar effect on students there.
Could other Olympians come around to the merits of liberating their medals from their drawers? Mr. Antoine said that his wife sometimes encouraged him to display his more prominently at their home.
“So maybe there’s a point at some time when I put it out there a little more, show it off a bit,” he said.
Ashley Caldwell and her husband, Justin Schoenefeld, who won gold medals together in mixed team aerial skiing in 2022, initially considered getting custom cases. Then time passed and they lost interest.
Eventually, the night stands on either side of their bed seemed like appropriate resting places.
“We sleep between two Olympic gold medals,” Ms. Caldwell said. “It feels pretty good.”
