Newly-crowned Olympic champions from Paris 2024 don’t just win bragging rights–national Olympic committees (NOC) or national governments from around the globe reward the achievements of their star athletes with a cash prize. With the expenses that go into being an elite athlete, these funds can go a long way in supporting their athletic endeavours and encouraging further successes in sport. The prize pot isn’t standardized between countries, so how much they earn is highly dependent on the athlete’s nationality.
In Canada, an Olympic gold medallist is rewarded CAD 20,000 through the Canadian Olympic Committee’s Athlete Excellence Fund. The same achievement pays significantly better across the border–Team USA’s NOC offers CAD 47,100 to their champions from Paris 2024.
Making both of these prize pots seem negligible are the six-figure rewards offered by some nations; France, Spain, Malaysia, Republic of Kazakhstan, Morocco, Hungary, Kosovo, Estonia, Israel and Indonesia are all gifting more than CAD 100,000 to their gold medallists. Even Indonesia’s CAD 400,000 cash prize looks minuscule in comparison to the $1,000,000 gold medal prize pot offered by Hong Kong and Singapore.
Taiwan’s gold-medal program may one-up all the rest; Olympic champions receive CAD 818,000 initially, and $5,400 monthly for life.
Other nations present athletes with prizes other than cash, such as livestock, property, services, cars or food. Nations like Botswana, which saw their first Olympic gold medal in history in Paris, acknowledge the significance of the monumental achievements to the development of sport and accessibility of resources in the country–going as far as giving the entire nation a half-day holiday on Aug. 9 to celebrate their newly-minted 200m Olympic champion, Letsile Tebogo.
For winning Gold in the men’s 200m, this is what Tebogo is getting.
1. A 4 bedroom house from the Botswana Government
2. 1 million Pula ($75,000) from a local company
3. $3,600 for reaching the final of the 100m and 200m
4. National Holiday on his name
5. Overall, he’s… pic.twitter.com/AXwDXOn5d6— Fentuo Tahiru Fentuo (@Fentuo_) August 9, 2024
For the Paris 2024 Games, World Athletics became the first international governing body to compensate Olympic champions with a cash prize, promising the first-place finishers in each track-and-field event a whopping USD 50,000 (CAD 68,172) to take home alongside their gold medal and nation’s prize pot.
Some countries, such as the United Kingdom, Norway and Sweden, offer no reward for their athletes who bring home an Olympic gold medal.
