Here's How Much Team Canada Olympic Medal Winners Make Compared To Other Countries

So here's something we didn't know until today — winning a gold, silver or bronze medal doesn't automatically come with a financial payout. The International Olympic Committee is apparently only responsible for shelling out the medals and the glory. It's up to winners' countries or Olympic committees to provide financial compensation. And, compared to some countries around the world, Canada keeps a tight budget.

Canada's certainly not the tightest of tightwads out there — according to Forbes, it doesn't pay at all to win a spot on the podium if you play for Great Britain or New Zealand, for starters. It also doesn't pay to be a Paralympian in Canada, regardless of where you place in the games.

Canadian athletes are paid through the Canadian Olympic Committee Athlete Excellence Fund (AEF). The AEF pays out CA$20,000 for gold medals, $15,000 for silver medals, and $10,000 for bronze medals. It also doles out $5,000 for athletes competing in world championships on non-Olympic years to help with all those pesky expenses that come with being a top athlete, including training and travel.

Australian athletes earn comparable amounts: about CA$18,200 for gold, CA$13,650 for silver, and CA$9,100 for bronze.

American medalists also receive a relatively small podium payout: US$37,500 (roughly CA$47,600) for gold, US$22,500 (CA $28,500) for silver, and US$15,000 (CA$19,000) for bronze. This is compared to countries like Singapore, where a gold medal will win you S$1 million — the equivalent of roughly CA$944,000.

The discrepancy in prize money between countries may be attributed to how many medals a country expects to win. At the time of writing, Canada had already won 12 medals in the 2022 Winter Olympics: one gold medal, four silver medals, and seven bronze medals, for a total of CAD$150,000 so far in prize money.

Meanwhile, there are jurisdictions like Hong Kong, which, according to the South China Morning Post, is offering gold medalists the equivalent of CA$812,600 — which they can certainly afford to offer, since, as Forbes reports, Hong Kong has never won a medal in the Winter Olympics.