Rio Olympics 2016 are underway with all its glory and controversies. Athletes from around 200 countries will be fighting it out for medals in 26 sports. Have you ever wondered what is at stake for medal winners ? “DO Olympic medalists receive cash prizes along with the medals ?” Well, in most of the cases yes but the athletes don’t receive any prize money from Olympics committee but its their national Olympic federation who award prizes which are disclosed before the tournament. Lets take a look at cash prizes awarded by different federations.



So the cash prize awarded to athletes are different from country to country and the usual big guns like United States only offer around $25,000 for winning the gold, $15,000 for silver and $10,000 for Bronze while Azerbaijan award $510,000 to the winner of gold, $255,000 for silver and $130,000 for bronze.

But you have to take into account that athletes who wins Gold for USA, UK, Australia etc can hit a jackpot in terms of endorsement deals which can be much more cash rewarding compared to just the one off payment. Before we explain which federations pays the most we take a look at how much the Olympic medals are worth ?

Value of Summer Olympics Medals:

Gold: $600 (The gold medal consist of just 1% of actual gold, 92.5% silver and 6.16% copper). Silver: $325 (While in silver medal, the gold is replaced by more copper rest meterial is the same like gold medal) Bronze: $3 (Bronze medal however is 97% copper and 2.5% zinc and 0.5% tin)

Thats the actual worth of raw material used in the medal but of course if athletes were to sell/auction their medals they will get alot more than just the face value of material. See Also: All-Time Olympics Medal Table

Cash Money Rewards for Olympic Medalists:

Like we mentioned before Olympic medalists do get cash rewards from almost all the the national olympic federations and here are some of the highest paying federations in oympics. Most of the countries award lump sum payments but some countries like Philippines and Thailand award cash prized which are staple income over 20 years. Only a handful of countries ward cash prized to silver and bronze medalists while most federations only award prized for gold winners.