We never even thought about this.
Winning a gold medal at the Olympics is the pinnacle of sporting achievements, with Usain Bolt winning nine of them in his past three Olympic games, and Britain’s Mo Farah completing the double-double, claiming another historic gold in the 5,000m in the early hours of Sunday.
While it’s the ultimate symbol of athletic achievement, there is also the small matter of getting paid for your award.
What’s surprising is that the amount of money athletes get from different countries for winning in their competition differs a lot.
And it’s bad news for Mo, Laura, Jason, Sir Brad and co. Because while the Singaporean athletes get well over half a million quid for winning gold, the Brits get… nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zero. £o.
(Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)
According to Statista, countries including Sweden, Norway and Croatia also do not reward their gold medallists with money.
In terms of gold medal payouts, it really pays to be Singaporean athlete (literally).
Singapore – €669,739.05 (£578,000)
Indonesia – €340,663.12 (£294,000)
Azerbaijan – €227,108.74 (£196,000)
Kazakhstan – €203934.38 (£176,000)
Italy – €164,537.97 (£142,000)
France – €59,094.62 (£51,000)
Russia – €54,459.75 (£47,000)
South Africa – €32,444.11 (£28,000)
USA – €22,015.64 (£19,000)
Germany – €17,380.77 (£15,000)
Australia – €13,904.62 (£12,000)
Great Britain – £0
Not a great time to be British is it?
And there’s mixed news if you are an American athlete. Good news: you get a nice little £19k bonus.
Bad news: you will have to pay tax on that. Most countries exempt their athletes from tax on Olympic prize money – but not the good ol’ U S of A.
A group called Americans for Tax Reform reckon Michael Phelps and co will have to give 39.6% of their winnings back to the government – reasoning that the top earners will be in the top tax bracket.
And it gets worse: not only do the Americans get taxed on their prize money – they also get taxed on the value of the medals themselves.
(Photo by Adam Pretty/Getty Images)
The BBC says gold medals are worth almost $600, silver medals $300, and poor old Bronze just $4, the BBC reports.
All that means that multiple medal winner Phelps will be facing a tax bill of something like $55,000.
Little tip, Michael: next time relocate to Singapore before you go to the Olympics.
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