How much money do olympic atheletes when they win a medal?

Question

Do they play for the glory or is there alot of money involved too?

Answer 1

they don't get paid but if they do well they can get endorsements  

Answer 2

The International Olympic Committee does not award cash prizes to the winners. Many countries, however, do offer cash prizes and other incentives to medalists (for example Canada and the Dominican Republic).   And some Olympians get paid a performance bonus from sponsors for winning a medal and may sign commercial endorsements that could wind up paying them millions.

Answer 3

apparently the most the celebrity athletes will earn in endorsements would only be $100,000 in the coming months.

soon after,

they will be forgotten

theyd rather endorse sportsman that will make the headlines every 2 weeks not every 2 years

true?

Answer 4

glory to get a medal

Answer 5

They only get money from donations at first and later they get money from commercials and when they play professional sports.

Answer 6

In some countries they pay the athletes for winning medals, and people from one country will play for the team of another country that offers money. Those athletes  prob. do not play only for the money though. They just choose which country to play on if they have a good team and if they pay them when they win medals.

They probably choose to play for the glory and the love of their sport, cuz it takes so much training and hard work to qualify for the Olympics let alone win a gold.

Answer 7

They play for the glory.

But winning an Olympic medal (or multiple medals) almost surely leads to lucrative product endorsement deals and paid personal appearances.

Expect to see Michael Phelps, Nastia Liukin, and Shawn Johnson on Wheaties boxes and more.  

Answer 8

As it was said earlier, some countries do pay, but very few make the millions like Phelps and Hussein.

Even then Hussein did not have that many endorsements but after his amazing record shattering performances and the obvious fact that he will keep making the headlines for years to come, odds he will make a couple millions in the coming years. Donovan Bailey (previous 100m record holder and CBC commentator for the event) estimates Hussein will make 10-15 million in endorsement by doing adds in the coming year.

Micheal Phelps was already a swimming superstar and so he made 5 million in endorsements this year + bonuses for medals from Speedo (1million for the 7th medal, I don't know the other numbers).

As for regular gold medalists, they usually are pretty poor, the Canadian 8 men rowing team who won the gold medal had a salary of 18 000 + travel and trainer. They are considered to have allot of sponsorship from a Canadian standpoint.