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Forbes
Forbes
26 Jul 2024


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 begin 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.

olympic-medal-2024-by-Thomas-Deschamps

Thomas Deschamps

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.

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.