Hello everyone

I'm just curious if anyone knows how much do Olympians get paid and do they get paid to train or is it done all by themselves with their own money?

When they win a medal, are there bonuses like in the NBA, MLB (win the NBA Championship, get $50,000 bonus or something like that)?

All depends on what country/federation you're from.

But I think most have somekind of bonus these days if you win a medal.

But I'm guessing there is a big difference between the chinese one and say the mongolian one.

With everyday training I think there are even bigger differences between the different systems and conditions for the athletes.

yeah. obviously the richer countries pay more. i think for the us its in the tens of thousands for a gold but that could be way off. i'm sure if you won a gold for a country like dubai you'd be a millionaire.

I remember Thailand's first ever gold medal winner boxer Somluck Kamsing got a 2 million dollar bonus afterwards.

yeah i think usa's is actually one of the lowest. i saw the russians get 100k for golds. for the us its 25k. but a lot more us athletes win medals, plus a lot of them get paid by sponsors anyway.

This is the first olympics Canadian athletes are getting anything for winning a medal. Something like 25k for gold, 10k silver, 5k bronze.

this is an extreme example- but estimates are that Michael Phelps makes 5 million a year from endorsement deals.

In addition swimmers can help support themselves with prize money during the year from some meets like grand prix events.
USA Swimming/USOC also hand out bonuses for medals I think- but I'm not sure the amounts off the top of head. Matt Biondi wrote an article stating 75K for gold.

Also- Phelps has a million dollar bonus from Nike if he wins 8 golds this year.

Phelps is one thing, I can easily understand how he makes cash year round, but like alternate male gymnasts? Weightlifters? Archery?

yeah those are good questions. I would assume in general that sports compensate in a somewhat tiered system based on the audience they reach.
That's not true for all countries- some countries are absolute in compensation likely.

Swimming and gymnastics in general are the glamour events of the first week (at least as far as NBC coverage is concerned)- with track and team sports like basketball and soccer/football becoming more visible the second week as the medals rounds approach. I really don't know how those other sports that don't get prime time coverage tend to be compensated but am interested enough in the question to now take a look.

the medal bonuses apply to all US swimmers equally btw just to be clear.
And "professional" swimmers like aaron piersol and brendan hansen and ian crocker and jason lezak and natalie coughlin aren't hurting for money even if they aren't pulling down Phelps type numbers.

Someone like Matt Grevers is probably getting more as a relative amount compared to what he has than most at these olympics since he's just recently out of college and can now accept prize money.

fwiw there appears to be a case where paralympians sued the USOC for discrimination based on discrepancies in funding and bonuses for medals along with other factors.

In 2002 US Olympians received 25K for gold, 15K for silver, and 10K for bronze medals from the USOC. (winter olympics)
Paralympians received one tenth of that for the first time after previously receiving nothing.

The case looks fairly interesting- but it was the numbers/facts that stood out there for a baseline to work off of.

Okay here's a good comparison I think for an obscure sport.

here's the US pentathlon compensation outline. It shows stipends available and Olympic medal bonuses (which are the same 25K/15K/10K talked about in that paralympian case.)

Super dry reading- but interesting at least from the perspective of how many small sport athletes likely train/live. Most of them are full time athletes and have other jobs to keep ahead of the bills.

http://assets.teamusa.org/assets/doc...rtCriteria.pdf

Okay here's a good comparison I think for an obscure sport.

here's the US pentathlon compensation outline. It shows stipends available and Olympic medal bonuses (which are the same 25K/15K/10K talked about in that paralympian case.)

Super dry reading- but interesting at least from the perspective of how many small sport athletes likely train/live. Most of them are full time athletes and have other jobs to keep ahead of the bills.

http://assets.teamusa.org/assets/doc...rtCriteria.pdf

Good stuff. The numbers seem kinda low to me for some reason. I mean these athletes train for months and if not years and get very little pay for their efforts even with the Gold medal. Although some athletes get funded for training by the OTC, not all can get funded. How do they survive on this income?

Yeah, no doubt Phelps is gonna be making thousands and millions coming up with endorsement deals in the coming years. Gymnast, weightlifters and other swimmers and other athletes probably have part-time jobs maybe? That's why I brought up this question because are the Olympic athletes consume with training for 4 years and not work at all? or do they have lives as well? It can vary between athletes of course.

In the end, probably to them winning the medal is more important than money.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/26047381

and its possibly another mill if he breaks the record but i'm not sure about that.

I remember during the last winter olympics hearing stories about speed-skaters who worked at and were also sponsored by Home Depot during the off-season.

I should probably go look up their program- I've seen commercials again this Olympics where they boast about being the world's largest employer of Olympians.

My best guess is that most Olympic athletes train full time mostly year round for their sports and that in many sports they don't make a living wage doing it considering travel and training needs. I think the Pentathlon compensation outline for the US shows that "minor" sports are ones where the rewards of competing outweigh any monetary gain.

In sports like swimming and gymnastics I would guess top athletes (let's say Olympic finalists/perennial national team members) make a decent living wage in sports not considered traditional "pro" sports in most European countries in addition to possibly Asia. And in Australia and the US where they probably make a very good living.

There are fringe US swimming Olympians- national team members who may not be favorites to even make the Olympics- that have to supplement their stipends and meet winnings with irregular 9-5s also- but the stars basically are swimmers only and can afford to train and travel to meets. (unless still in college where it gets screwy because the NCAA is a bunch of facists)

That part is probably really only true in the last 12-15 years though- and Phelps type compensation as well as to a lesser extent Piersol/ Coughlin etc is even more recent than that.


edit: here's an older NYTimes link about winter olympians and Home Depot

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...51C0A9649C8B63

I had a college roommate who was on the US triathlon team for years. I should just track down his email and ask him some questions imo.

I remember when Gary Hall Jr. won i think he nabbed 60-70K for a gold medal.
Think he bought a motorcycle and drove across the country...probably bought a decent amount of pot too. Though this was late 90s early 2000 and pre diabetes