How Much Money Athletes Are Paid By Their Countries For Winning A Medal




Attempting to win an Olympic medal is tough work: you entirely dedicate four years of your life to maybe get on that podium. With that comes glory and pride for the athlete and their home nation. The icing on the cake? Cash incentives, especially if you win gold. While no one is going to scoff at any amount, the incentive does vary drastically between country-to-country, mostly because some countries win a lot of medals and others struggle…a lot. Get your friends and make some bets to see which country pays the most for a gold medal. (Antagonizing comment: I bet you won’t get it right.) 











Before we start, let’s discuss how much the medals are really worth.


The medals are all nice and shiny, bringing glory to the motherland, but they’re not worth nearly as much as you think. 1. Gold ($587) – It’s actually only 1% gold and the rest is 92.5% silver and 6.16% copper. That means Phelps’ entire gold medal collection is roughly worth $13,000. If the medal was actually made entirely out of gold, each gold would be worth $21,000. 2. Silver ($325) – 92.5% silver and 7.2% copper.3. Bronze ($3) – I guess it doesn’t pay to really be in third. The bronze is made up of 97% copper, 2.5% zinc, and 0.5% tin. 




1. United States – $25,000; China – $31,400 per gold medal


No surprise here, mostly because countries that often win a lot of gold medals tend to give lower cash incentives as the total payout ultimately ends up being much higher. $25,000 sounds like a lot until you look at taxes, though. A gold medalist like Michael Phelps owes $9,900 in taxes for every gold medal won. God bless, America. USA and China place third and fourth to last, respectively, in cash bonus amounts. 











2. United Kingdom, Sweden, Norway and Croatia – $0.00


That’s right. These European countries offer absolutely no cash bonuses, coming in dead last for cash incentives. Why doesn’t the UK offer a cash incentive? According to British Olympic Association Spokesman, it’s because they believe “that financial rewards do not significantly impact the motivation of an athlete to reach the Olympic podium. We believe that the drive, dedication and commitment required of Team GB athlete is motivated, first and foremost, by the desire to represent their country to the very best of their ability.” There you go. All for the motherland. 




3. Taiwan – 20 million New Taiwan Dollars aka $640,000!


Taiwan offers the 2nd highest cash bonus of any country at the Olympics, with the silver coming in at $223,000 and bronze at $160,000. Only Taiwanese gold medalist so far at Rio 2016? 53kg weightlifter Hsu Shu-ching. She’s rolling in dough right now. 

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