If You Win a Gold Medal, '800 Million Won'... How Different Are the Rewards by Country?

South Korea's first gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics.
[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Soyoung] The moment filled with athletes' sweat, effort, and precious smiles. Although the glory of winning a gold medal cannot be fully converted into money, the differences in national rewards for gold medal achievements have become a hot topic.

On the 1st, the American business magazine Forbes introduced the medal rewards for 206 countries participating in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

According to Forbes, the country offering the highest rewards is Singapore, which provides gold medalists with approximately 850 million KRW in prize money. Silver medalists receive 500,000 Singapore dollars (about 425.28 million KRW), and bronze medalists receive 250,000 Singapore dollars (about 212.64 million KRW). Forbes explained, "If a gold medal is won in a team event, medalists receive even larger sums."

Following Singapore are Taiwan, Hong Kong, Indonesia, and Bangladesh. Taiwan, which won one gold medal each in weightlifting and badminton at the Tokyo Olympics, offers 20 million Taiwan dollars (about 824.8 million KRW) as a gold medal reward. Hong Kong decided to give gold medalists 5 million Hong Kong dollars (about 741 million KRW). Indonesia provides 5 billion rupiah (about 399 million KRW) as a gold medal reward and additionally grants a lifelong pension of about 1.6 million KRW per month. Bangladesh offers 300,000 US dollars (about 345.6 million KRW) as a gold medal reward.

On the other hand, the United States and European countries offer relatively smaller gold medal rewards compared to the aforementioned countries. Italy offers 180,000 euros (about 246 million KRW) for gold medals, making it one of the higher reward amounts among European countries, followed by Hungary with 50 million forints (about 191 million KRW), Kosovo with 100,000 euros (about 136.7 million KRW), while the UK and Sweden do not provide any rewards.

The United States gives gold medalists 37,500 dollars (about 43.2 million KRW), and Japan, the host country of this Olympics, is known to provide 45,000 US dollars (about 51.8 million KRW) as a gold medal reward.

Korea offers 63 million KRW for individual gold medals, 35 million KRW for silver, and 25 million KRW for bronze, with team events receiving 75% of the individual event amounts.