Canada's Winter Olympians Get Paid Less For Winning Medals Than Athletes From Other Countries

If you've ever wondered how much Canada's Winter Olympic athletes get paid for winning a medal — we've got you covered. While it definitely pays to be a winner here, Canadian athletes actually make a lot less than Olympians from other countries.

What many people don't know is that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) itself does not actually dish out any money to athletes — for participation or prize.

Instead, Olympic athletes earn money via medal bonuses in their home country, as well as through endorsements and stipends.

In Canada, they're paid through the Canadian Olympic Committee Athlete Excellence Fund, which is a program that gives competitors performance awards for winning medals.

The maximum a Canadian athlete can earn via the AEF is $20,000 for a gold medal, $15,000 for a silver medal and $10,000 for the bronze. In an Olympic year, awards are the same whether the athlete is from a team sport or an individual sport.

There's also funding of $5,000 for World Championship performances during non-Olympic years, "to support living, training, and competition expenses."

While that sounds like a lot, it's actually a pretty small amount when compared with what other medal-winning Olympic athletes make.

For example, American Olympians make $37,500 USD for gold, $22,500 USD for silver and $15,000 USD for bronze. That's a difference of approximately $27,500 CAD between the top-placed Canadian and American athletes.

In Malaysia, winning competitors can win 1 million ringgits (about $303,077 CAD) for gold, 300,000 ringgits ($90,923) for silver and 100,000 ringgits ($30,307) for bronze. Monthly allowances are added on top of that, too!

In Singapore, gold medal winners can take home an impressive $1 million Singaporean dollars — which is around $944,800 CAD!

In fact, according to Forbes, Winter Olympic medal winners in Hong Kong, Turkey, Malaysia, Italy, Cyprus, Latvia, Hungary, France, the United States, Germany and more, all earn more for finishing on the podium than their Canadian counterparts.

Perhaps more surprising though, is that Canadian Olympic athletes continue to get paid a considerable amount more than the country's Paralympians, who take home $0 in performance awards, regardless of how they finish.

This article’s cover image was used for illustrative purposes only.