While winning a medal doesn’t come with a guaranteed cash prize, many countries do reward athletes with substantial cash for medals
Olympic athletes who come back with a medal may find that they also come back with a cash prize as well.
There is no guaranteed cash prize for athletes who win a medal at the Olympics, but many countries offer a reward to winning athletes and it varies from country to country.
Traditionally, the Olympics have technically only been open to amateur competitors making the prospect of payment an interesting one.
In recent years, however, the rules around this have changed so professional athletes can compete, but what about the prize money?
Well, it all depends where you come from as some countries. as you can probably imagine, pay more than others.
Like I said before, the Olympics themselves don’t offer any reward for winners but some countries reward their athletes.
Obviously a gold medal means that you get a higher reward than a silver, and silver higher than bronze.
But how much can US athletes expect?
What can Olympic athletes expect to receive for each medal? (Phil Ashley / Getty)
Well, if you’re an athlete with the US team, then you can expect to be paid $15,000 for a bronze medal and $23,000 for a silver medal.
If you scoop the gold, that’s $38,000.
Although most people would be glad of those sums, when you consider that these are international level athletes and there are former NBA players and golfers who are actual billionaires, suddenly it looks a lot like peanuts.
But that’s not to say that there aren’t countries which pay their athletes a lot more than the US though.
For example, the Republic of Kazakhstan pays more for the bronze than the US does for the gold, at $75,000 for bronze, $150,000 for silver, and $250,000 for gold.
Now that’s more like it.
Ka Long Cheung of Hong Kong is in for a big payday after scooping the gold in the individual men’s foil. (Al Bello/Getty Images)
Indonesia and Israel take things higher still, with Israel going $135,000, $216,000, and then $271,000, – for bronze, silver and gold respectfully – while Indonesia sits at $60,000, $150,000, and $300,000.
Now we’re getting into the big leagues, with the top two countries both offering much higher rewards to medallists.
In second place is Singapore, where a bronze medal will net you a tidy $186,000, a silver medal $373,000, and a gold $745,000.
Just pipping them to the post is Hong Kong, where a bronze is $192,000, a silver $384,000, and a gold medal will scoop you $768,000.
The US surprisingly sits in tenth place when it comes to how much they pay their athletes, but it’s still a damn sight more than Australia – who sits dead last – with a not so grand total of $7,000 for bronze, $10,000 for silver and $13,000 for gold.
It’s almost as though a lot of Olympians aren’t actually in it for the money – who would have thought.
