Australia offers $13,000 to athletes who make it to the podium at the Summer Games, while the US offer $40,000 but one Asian delegation will provide nearly $800,000 for Olympics glory.
By Justin Birnbaum, Forbes Staff and Sofia Chierchio, Contributor
When LeBron James and the U.S. men’s national basketball team take the court on Sunday, they will be competing for more than national pride. Every American athlete who wins a gold medal this summer will receive a $37,500 bonus, courtesy of the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee, and while that’s hardly a difference maker for the multimillionaire (and, in James’ case, billionaire) NBA stars, it’s a boon for many other athletes trying to cover the cost of their Olympic dreams.
Still, that financial reward pales in comparison with what other nations offer for winning gold. Ahead of the Paris Olympics, which officially began with Friday’s opening ceremony, Forbes contacted the national Olympic committees or government sports ministries of all 206 countries and territories participating and confirmed that at least 33 will award cash prizes for medals. Within that group, 15 verified that they will pay more than $100,000 to athletes who top the podium.
Hong Kong, which competes independently of China at the Olympics, ranks No. 1 among those respondents. The territory offers $768,000 for a gold medal, a feat accomplished only twice by its athletes in the city’s 17 appearances at the Summer Games. In fact, Hong Kong’s prize for a silver medal is more than any of the 32 other nations will pay for victory—an impressive $380,000 bonus. For comparison, No. 2 Israel and No. 3 Serbia will award $275,000 and $218,000, respectively, for athletes who top the podium. All three delegations had an athlete earn gold at the Tokyo Games in 2021.
In many cases, a cash bonus for medaling is just one example of how countries reward their elite athletes. The USOPC, which will also pay $22,500 for silver and $15,000 for bronze, provides grants and benefits (such as health insurance) that are more widely available to Olympians. Malaysia and Bulgaria offer monthly allowances greater than $1,000 to gold medalists for life while Chile, Kosovo and Lithuania have a similar benefit that concludes by the next Olympics. New Zealand structures its payouts as yearly bonuses, with gold medalists receiving $40,000 annually until the following Games. And although Denmark awards only $15,000 for gold, it’s a tax-free prize, a perk in a country with one of the highest tax rates in the world.
Meanwhile, Poland offers a slew of benefits beyond the roughly $82,000 that gold medalists receive. Every medalist in Paris will receive a painting from “talented and respected” Polish artists, an investment-grade diamond and a vacation voucher for two from a travel agency. (Coaches are entitled to the same rewards.) Additionally, to celebrate the 100-year anniversary of Poland’s participation in the Olympics, individual-sport gold medalists will receive a two-bedroom apartment in the Warsaw metropolitan area while athletes who claim first place in a team sport will be granted a one-bedroom flat.
Many nations, including Norway, Iceland and Sweden, do not offer explicit financial compensation for medals, although in some cases they provide other sorts of grants for athletes. “We want our athletes to get all support before the Games to maximize the possibility of Olympic success,” the Swedish Olympic Committee’s secretary-general, Åsa Edlund Jönsson, tells Forbes by email. The same goes for the United Kingdom—but British Athletics, the governing body for the nation’s track and field team, does pay out medal bonuses independent of the government.
Here are 15 countries and territories offering six-figure payouts for gold medalists in individual sports.
🇭🇰 Hong Kong: $768,000
Hong Kong collected six medals at the last Summer Olympics, in Tokyo in 2021, including a gold in men’s foil fencing. But even if its athletes fail to reach the podium in Paris, the territory offers lucrative cash prizes: nearly $100,000 for a fourth-place finish, or almost $50,000 for fifth through eighth place.
🇮🇱 Israel: $275,000
Israel offers roughly $192,000 for silver and $137,000 for bronze, so just reaching the podium means a six-figure payday—unless it’s a team sport. For athletes who compete as a pair, Israel awards each 75% of the bonus; members of teams of three or four get 50%, and groups of five or more get 40% apiece. For “ball games,” such as soccer, a gold medal comes with about $275,000 split among 18 players and seven staff members. All rewards are tax-free.
🇷🇸 Serbia: $218,000
The Serbian government provides a cash bonus for medalists, but the benefits of reaching the podium don’t stop there. Athletes who claim gold, silver or bronze are eligible for a national pension, which kicks in at age 40 and is paid out monthly. That’s good news for 37-year-old Novak Djokovic, who is looking to add an Olympic medal in men’s tennis to the bronze from 2008 in his already overflowing trophy case.
🇲🇾 Malaysia: $214,000
For athletes representing Malaysia, the medal paydays span a wide range. Gold earns more than $200,000 while bronze medalists receive 10% of that figure. Regardless of where they land on the podium, Malaysian competitors are entitled to a pension for life, ranging between roughly $400 and $1,100 a month.
🇮🇹 Italy: $196,000
Italy doesn’t divvy up its medal bonuses for team sports, with each athlete receiving roughly $196,000 for gold, $98,000 for silver and $65,000 for bronze—the same as an individual-sport athlete. If the nation’s performance is anything like the last Summer Olympics, that could amount to a hefty bonus pool: Italy had 13 teams medal at the Tokyo Games in 2021.
🇱🇹 Lithuania: $182,000
The Lithuanian government pays both its athletes and its coaches for medals and determines those figures based on the “basic social benefit,” a monthly amount used in social security calculations. There are other Olympic perks, too. For instance, Lithuania pays rent for its medalists after they conclude their athletic careers.
🇲🇩 Moldova: $171,000
Even an eighth-place finish means a bonus for a Moldovan athlete, with the government awarding roughly $11,000. However, reaching the podium results in at least 10 times that amount. Moldova earned only one medal at the last Olympics, a bronze in men’s canoeing.
🇱🇻 Latvia: $155,000
Latvia generously provides bonuses to its athletes all the way down to sixth place. While gold receives about $155,000, each descending place gets 60% of the previous mark, so silver amounts to roughly $93,000 and bronze about $56,000. The same rule applies to team bonuses, although for gold, Latvia awards a lump sum of around $470,000 for all competing athletes, coaches and support personnel.
🇭🇺 Hungary: $154,000
In addition to a lucrative gold medal bonus, Hungary has one of the more generous bronze offerings, roughly $88,000. That’s welcome news for the country’s water polo teams, which earned bronze in both the men’s and women’s events at the Tokyo Games in 2021.
🇧🇬 Bulgaria: $139,000
Individual-sport athletes have a slight earnings edge under Bulgaria’s medal bonus structure, which offers roughly $111,000 for silver and $83,000 for bronze, in addition to the $139,000 for gold. Teams with more than two athletes reward 70% of their roster with 90% of the individual bonuses while the remaining 30% receive 50% of the outlined figures.
🇺🇦 Ukraine: $125,000
Twenty-nine athletes reached the podium for Ukraine at the last Summer Games between individual and team competitions as the nation collected 20 medals. Only one of those, however, was gold, which came in men’s Greco-Roman wrestling.
🇽🇰 Kosovo: $120,000
For gold medals, Kosovar athletes receive bonuses from both the country’s sports ministry and its national Olympic committee. They can earn even more with a record-breaking performance at the Summer Games. Kosovo’s sports ministry will award roughly $218,000 to an athlete who sets a record in an individual sport, and about half of that if it happens in a team sport.
🇪🇪 Estonia: $109,000
Success at the Olympics has a carryover effect for Estonian athletes, whose stipends from the country’s Olympic program get a boost from a top-10 performance at the Games. For example, in addition to the roughly $109,000 cash bonus for a gold medal, a victory would result in about $7,000 in monthly payments for the next two years. Coaches are also eligible to receive a reward, which is capped at half of an athlete’s bonus.
🇨🇿 Czech Republic: $103,000
Traditionally a powerhouse in women’s tennis, the Czech Republic will be without its silver medalist from the Tokyo Olympics after Markéta Vondroušová withdrew from the event ahead of Paris. But with Barbora Krejcikova, the 2024 Wimbledon champion and half of the doubles-winning pair from the last Games, the nation still has a fighting chance to claim gold.
🇪🇸 Spain: $102,000
While an Olympic gold nets a Spanish athlete six figures in an individual sport, that’s not the case with team competitions. Members of two-person teams cap out at roughly $82,000 while groups of three or more receive about $54,000 each. At the last Olympic Games, Spain had six teams earn medals, including gold in the mixed trap shooting event.
METHODOLOGY
The medal bonuses are listed in U.S. dollars, converted from the local currency at the exchange rate as of July 22 and rounded to the nearest thousand.
This article was first published on forbes.com and all figures are in USD.
Are you – or is someone you know -creating the next Afterpay or Canva? Nominations are open for Forbes Australia’s first 30 under 30 list. Entries close midnight, July 31, 2024.
Look back on the week that was with hand-picked articles from Australia and around the world. Sign up to the Forbes Australia newsletter here or become a member here.
