Steve Berkowitz

USA TODAY Sports

Ohio State rising junior wrestler Kyle Snyder will be getting a lot more than a gold medal for winning the 97-kilogram freestyle competition at the Rio Olympics on Sunday.

He’ll be getting a $250,000 award that, under NCAA rules, he can keep while continuing to compete for the Buckeyes.

Altogether, current or incoming college athletes from the United States and other countries won more than $2.1 million in medal awards during the Rio Games.

Snyder, who defeated Azerbaijan’s Khetag Goziumov in the gold-medal match, is benefiting for the second time in less than a year from a 15-year-old NCAA Division I rule that allows American college athletes to accept money administered under the U.S. Olympic Committee’s Operation Gold awards program. The program provides cash based on top performances in the Olympics or, in non-Olympic years, in a world championships or similar competition.

Olympics offer rare chance for NCAA athletes to be paid

In an Olympic year, for many U.S. athletes that means $25,000 for a gold medal, $15,000 for a silver or $10,000 for a bronze, with the possibility of getting multiple awards.

For wrestlers, however, the awards are enhanced by money connected to the sport’s national governing body, USA Wrestling. The organization’s Living The Dream Medal Fund, established in 2009, is maintained as a restricted pool of donor money aimed at keeping top competitors in the sport. The USOC allows its inclusion under the umbrella of Operation Gold.

So, last September, when Snyder won a world championship, he received $50,000. He then returned to Ohio State and won an NCAA championship.

For the Rio Olympics, the Living The Dream Medal Fund Awards were even more lucrative: $250,000 for a gold medal — an amount 24-year-old Helen Maroulis also will get for winning the women’s 53-kilogram freestyle competition — $50,000 for a silver and $25,000 for a bronze, which University of Missouri rising senior J’Den Cox claimed in the 86-kilogram freestyle competition.

Snyder wasn't thinking of how he would spend his money shortly after winning gold.

“No purchases planned as of now," he said. "Even throughout the day, I’d think about it. I tried to push it out of my brain because I’m trying to focus on the wrestling and focus on just competing as hard as I can. But that type of stuff, gold medal, money, accolades, all that stuff pops in my head. But during competition I like to keep it simple and focus on the wrestling.”

Altogether, current and incoming American college athletes won more than $1.3 million in medal awards at the Rio Games. The second-greatest amount will go to swimmer Katie Ledecky, who is heading into her freshman year at Stanford. Her four gold medals and one silver translate into $115,000 in awards from the USOC. But she and other swimming medalists also will be able to keep additional money from USA Swimming under Operation Gold, although Scott Leightman, a spokesman for the organization, declined before the Games to provide the amounts available.

Meanwhile, a change in NCAA Division I rules that took effect last August created an Operation Gold-type exception for athletes from countries other than the United States. That change will allow Singapore swimmer Joseph Schooling, set to be a junior at the University of Texas, to keep an award of about $740,000 from the Singapore National Olympic Council for winning the men’s 100-meter butterfly. A number of Canadian athletes also earned awards from their national Olympic organization, including four players from the bronze-medal-winning women’s soccer team.

Olympic swimmer Joseph Schooling scores big in butterfly with $740,000 in win over Phelps

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