From apartments to diamonds: Wildest rewards Olympic athletes can get from their countries

I’m sure being an Olympic athlete and earning major praise and respect when winning a medal is great and all, but what about the insane rewards athletes can get from their countries? From, diamonds to three bedroom apartments and hundreds of thousands of pounds, there’s a lot of extra incentive to go for gold.

If you okay your cards right you could come out almost £600,000 richer and if you’re lucky, become a hilarious viral meme in the process. So, let’s find out what kind of rewards all the different countries give to their Olympic athletes if they manage to walk away with a medal.

Via BBC

According to Forbes, 15 nations offer a cash prize of over £77,750 if their athletes take home the gold in the Olympics. Out of these, Hong Kong offers the highest incentive with athletes being rewarded £587,300 for gold and £295,000 for silver. Israel also offers a massive monetary reward, awarding athletes £213,900 for gold, £149,000 for silver and £106,000 for bronze.

Slightly depressingly for UK athletes, they get paid precisely £0 no matter what kind of medal they manage to win. I mean, is there really any point?

However, some countries offer Olympic athletes more unique rewards for their hard-earned efforts. On top of paying those who bring home gold £63,000, Poland gives every medallist a painting by a talented artist, an investment grade diamond plus a holiday voucher for two. As if that wasn’t amazing enough, this year they’re also giving gold medallists a luxury two bedroom apartment in Warsaw.

Via BBC

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If you’re a Serbian athlete and win any kind of medal you automatically become eligible to start claiming your national pension, which normally starts at 40, no matter what age you are. Athletes from New Zealand don’t get their bonus in one go, instead, they get an annual payment of £31,100 until the next Olympics come along.

Malaysian medalists receive an annual salary of £850 for the rest of their lives as well as a car, and in previous Olympics, two Indonesian gold medalists were given five cows, a meatball restaurant and a new house. Really hope the cows and meatball restaurant aren’t correlated…

Some athletes also receive an extra sum of money if they’re part of the athletics or boxing group of the Olympics. World Athletics pay athletes an additional £40,000 if they get gold on top of whatever their country is giving them. Boxing medal winners are paid £79,175 for winning gold, £39,087 for silver and £19,543 for bronze.

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Featured image via BBC before edits.