Monica Aksamit, a 2016 fencing bronze medalist, posted a video on TikTok that has gone insanely viral. It shows what other countries pay their medalists compared to the United States.
At the Tokyo Olympics, American athletes are getting $37,500 for each gold medal, $22,500 for each silver medal and $15,000 for each bronze medal.
Singapore, on the other hand, gives gold medalists $737,000, silver medalists $369,000 and bronze medalists $184,000 for bronze, The Singapore National Olympic Council wrote. Kazakhstan and Malaysia gives their gold medalists around $250,000, while Japan gives their winners much less: $45,000 for gold, $18,000 for silver and $9,000 for bronze.
Aksamit told The Post in 2019 that she needed to raise $21,000 to fund her path to the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.
“I’m embarrassed by [the fund-raising], but there isn’t anything else I can be doing. Most part-time jobs are physical. Waiting tables, you are on your feet all day long and then you’re too tired to train,” Aksamit said. “I have applied for a few part-time jobs [in retail] and been honest about my schedule. They always say, ‘Yeah we are interested in someone who has more availability.’”
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Top athletes who get air time don’t have to worry as much as the bulk of their money will becoming elsewhere. For others, however, those medal earnings mean a whole lot more and would take them having to win multiple times to bring in a profit over what they likely lost in the years it took for them to even train and qualify for the Olympics.
