If you’ve made a gold-winning medal commitment to watching and supporting our swimmers in Paris (like yours truly), one Olympic question you might have missed the answer to is what country pays their medal-winning athletes the most and what countries qualify as being sporting tightwads?

These kinds of revelations are why I love news. I like it even more when I get the news from one of our journalists from esquire.com.au that we publish!

Thanks to the research work of Cayle Reid, I now know the top 10 countries for rewarding their athletes at the Paris Olympics. I wanted to know if we’re the last of the big time spenders or gold medal winning tightwads!

One swimmer who went ‘oh so close’ to picking up a $1.18 million prize ‘twice’ was Hong Kong’s Siobhán Bernadette Haughey, who took bronze in both the 200 metres and 100 metres freestyle events in Paris this week. However, her infectious smile on the medal dais could be explained by the fact that, as Fortune.com tells us, “Hong Kong, which competes separately from China in the Olympics, awards a prize of US$768,000 (A$1.8 million) for a gold medal, US$380,000 (A$585,000) for a silver medal, and US$192,000 (approximately A$300,000) for a bronze.”

Getting the silver for medal payments is the very competitive Singapore that pays its winners $1.13 million. One athlete who’d love this government offering has to be (as Reid tells us) “Joseph Schooling, who defeated Michael Phelps at the 2016 Rio Olympics in the 100-metre butterfly and is the lucky Singaporean.”

Finally, the bronze for medal payments goes to Taiwan, which coughs up A$1.09 million for an athlete who runs third best in the world at the Olympics.

Who has been the biggest winner thanks to this Taiwanese generosity? Weightlifter Hsu Shu-ching is Taiwan’s most successful Olympian, winning gold in the women’s 53kg category at back-to-back Olympics at London 2012 and Rio 2016. As Cayle Reid concludes “…we have to assume she’s living fairly comfortably right now.”

Interestingly, the only big economy country that made the top 10 rewarders for Olympic success is Italy. Given how good this country can be at the global showcase of great athletes, the A$325,830 it gives to gold medal winners, means the Italians win the award as the most generous supporters of their hot shot sports stars!

So, how does Australia compare when it comes to its
financial rewards for our winners at Paris?
Well, it looks like we could be the silver medallist in the tightwad stakes as gold medal winners get $20,000, there’s $15,000 for silver, and $10,000 for bronze. However, our athletes can only get one payment, so our multiple gold medal winners top out with only $20,000.

However, the Brits look like they win the tightwads of the Olympics because of what they pay their gold medal winners, and what’s that amount? Try, zip. Nothing! But it is a four-way tie with New Zealand, Norway and Sweden, who also aren’t prepared to pay a reward to their medal winners.

That said, given the Poms win a lot more golds than the other countries, they save the most. So, on a countback, they win the gold for the greatest tightwads of the Paris Olympics!
For the full story, check out Cayle Reid’s great yarn at
https://www.esquire.com.au/sports/countries-that-pay-athletes-for-olympic-medals/#:~:text=Kazakhstan,-Reward%20for%20a&text=Kazakhstan%20is%20a%20curious%20case,or%20a%20diminishing%20cash%20payment.