American shot putter Reese Hoffa‘s bronze medal from the 2012 Olympics was stolen while he was at the Patriots-Falcons game Sunday night, according to his Twitter account.
Hoffa, 35, went to the University of Georgia and has long trained in Athens, about 90 minutes east of the Falcons’ Georgia Dome home.
Hoffa won his first Olympic medal in his third Games in 2012. He posted the top mark in qualifying -- throwing 21.36 meters for an automatic qualifier on his first throw -- but was beaten by Tomasz Majewski and David Storl in the final.
He edged American teammate Christian Cantwell for the bronze after Cantwell’s final throw came .04 of a meter short of Hoffa’s best throw in the final -- 21.23. Hoffa, the 2007 world champion, was fourth at the 2013 World Championships in August.
Hoffa’s news brings to mind a story from earlier this month. A Bahamian 4x400-meter relay runner’s 2012 Olympic gold medal was stolen from his car in Florida. It was found before it was set to be melted and sold as a nugget.