Singapore winners get £572,000 while US champs receive £19,000: What Olympians get paid for taking gold

YOU could argue an Olympic gold medal is priceless, but for many athletes that certainly isn’t the case.

Winning at Rio nets some competitors a small fortune – but it depends on the nation you’re competing for.

It may come as a surprise that members of Team GB who take home gold don’t get paid anything for their achievement – however they’re likely to pick up lucrative sponsorship deals.

If you win for Singapore on the other hand, like 21-year-old swimmer Joseph Schooling, you’re also awarded the handsome sum of £572,260.

Given he was the first Singaporean ever to take gold in an Olympic event, it wouldn’t be surprising if that whopping sum is reduced now someone has actually won.

For competitors from Indonesia, like this year’s badminton mixed doubles duo, there’s a prize pot of £291,069 on the table, while winning Azerbaijan athletes will receive a bonus of £193,793.

Those are the top three paying nations, but it doesn’t stop there.

Kazakhstan pay out £174,793 to each gold medal winner, while Italy’s Men’s Omnium hero Elia Viviani will have pocketed around £140,595.

The French equestrian team have done well this Games, notching up five out of the team’s current eight gold medal tally.

Each competitor will nab a bonus of about £50,158.

Had lonely Russian athlete Darya Klishina won gold in the Women’s Long jump, she could have taken home £46,358 for her troubles.

South African athletes get £27,359 per gold medal, while Michael Phelps will be in the money after winning five, which come with an added bonus of £19,000 each.

German winners get £15,199 while Australians take home £11,399.

Other countries offer alternative prizes – in South Korea you become exempt from military service and, perhaps best of all, German winners are provided with a lifetime’s supply of free beer.

Former Australian Olympic swimmer Geoff Huegill reckons cash incentives don’t actually work.

He told Fox News: “A cash bonus for a medal is great and always appreciated by athletes but it’s not the sole focus, rather a nice way to be acknowledged for the efforts you have put into your chosen discipline.”

Huegill may have a point, seeing as Team GB are second in the medals table and take home nothing but a gold medal and newfound status as a national hero.

Now that’s something money can’t buy…