Untold amounts of blood, sweat and tears go into getting to the top step of the Olympic podium.
For many, it’s the culmination of at least four years’ relentless dedication to perfection, above all else.
A gold medal can mean a lot of things: relief, reward, promotion and a level of fame.
But what’s the economic pay-off at the end of all that struggle?
Well, that kind of depends on where you’re from.
The Olympics as an event are born on the age-old ethos of amateurism — meaning that for more than 100 years, those that competed for gold couldn’t be paid in it.
In short, for the most part you win a medal, but that’s it.
As a result, athletes generally rely on things like sponsorship and marketing endorsements to pay the bills.
Some are toiling in the strive for Olympic perfection while holding down a separate nine-to-five job like the rest of us.
But while the majority of athletes don’t receive prize money for winning a medal from the International Olympics Committee, that doesn’t mean their host nations aren’t splurging on them.
What do we pay our medal winners?
Like a lot of countries, we don’t pay our athletes for competing.
We pay them for winning.
Australia, via the AOC, doles out $20,000 for gold medals, with $15,000 set aside for silver and $10,000 for bronze.
Swimmers, rowers, and volleyballers benefit further from Australia’s largest private performance fund, backed by mining billionaire Gina Rinehart, which pays the same amount for medals and an extra $30,000 for world records.
And that pay is much needed.
Last August, the Australian Sports Foundation (ASF) released its “Running on Empty” report, which revealed almost half of Australia’s elite athletes earned less than $23,000 a year.
It’s enough to put them below the poverty line, according to the ASF.
What about other countries?
There are some truly crazy offers out there for Olympians.
Hong Kong, which competes independently of China, offers gold medal winners an eye-watering $1.21 million, with silver receiving $605,000 and bronze $320,535.
Similarly, Singapore pays gold medallists $1.18 million with sliding scales of payment back to bronze.
The host nation, France, upped its prize money this year to $136,000 for gold, while the USA’s Project Gold pays its athletes around $58,755 per gold.
And it’s not just about cash.
At the Tokyo Games, Indonesian badminton gold medallists Greysia Polii and Apriyani Rahayu were reportedly promised five cows, a meatball restaurant, and a new house, according to Reuters.
And in Kazakhstan, gold medallists allegedly earn a swathe of cash and an apartment from the state.
South Korea offers its medallists pensions in addition to prize money.
Each nation also chucks its own stipulations on payment regarding all number of things from training to taxes and future Games.
Here’s the current medal tally, for those wanting a sticky beak.
