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ATHLETICS · PARIS 2024 · 48 EVENTS

Olympic athletics prize money

A gold medal at Paris 2024 paid $50,000, the first time an Olympic title had ever carried a cheque. It was paid in all 48 events and came to $2,400,000. A silver paid nothing and a bronze paid nothing, so 97 of the 145 medals awarded in Paris were worth no money at all.

The Olympic movement does not pay for medals. This money is athletics' own, put up by the sport out of its share of the broadcast revenue, and it splits two ways: $2,100,000 to the 41 people who won the 42 individual titles, and $300,000 to the four federations behind the six relay golds, paid as one cheque to the country with no split published between the runners.

A GOLD PAYS $50,000
TOTAL POOL $2,400,000
EVENTS PAID 48
MEDALS PAYING NOTHING 97
COUNTRIES PAID 27

Every athlete who won an Olympic gold, and what the sport pays them

The 42 individual titles at Paris 2024, ranked on career prize money

$2,100,000 paid in golds
The individual athletics gold medallists at Paris 2024, each with the fifty thousand dollars the title paid and what the same athlete has won across the Diamond League and the world championships.
# CHAMPION EVENT COUNTRY GOLD PAID CIRCUIT MONEY
1 Armand Duplantis Men's pole vault Sweden $50,000 $985,750
2 Marileidy Paulino Women's 400 metres Dominican Republic $50,000 $605,500
3 Yaroslava Mahuchikh Women's high jump Ukraine $50,000 $601,250
4 Jakob Ingebrigtsen Men's 5000 metres Norway $50,000 $575,000
5 Noah Lyles Men's 100 metres United States $50,000 $474,000
6 Emmanuel Wanyonyi Men's 800 metres Kenya $50,000 $431,500
7 Julien Alfred Women's 100 metres Saint Lucia $50,000 $423,000
8 Miltiadis Tentoglou Men's long jump Greece $50,000 $421,500
9 Rai Benjamin Men's 400 metres hurdles United States $50,000 $407,250
10 Valarie Allman Women's discus throw United States $50,000 $391,000
11 Masai Russell Women's 100 metres hurdles United States $50,000 $385,500
12 Faith Kipyegon Women's 1500 metres Kenya $50,000 $380,000
13 Beatrice Chebet Women's 5000 metres Kenya $50,000 $350,250
14 Beatrice Chebet Women's 10,000 metres Kenya $50,000 $350,250
15 Haruka Kitaguchi Women's javelin throw Japan $50,000 $349,500
16 Soufiane El Bakkali Men's 3000 metres steeplechase Morocco $50,000 $340,500
17 Keely Hodgkinson Women's 800 metres Great Britain $50,000 $307,500
18 Letsile Tebogo Men's 200 metres Botswana $50,000 $304,250
19 Ryan Crouser Men's shot put United States $50,000 $280,000
20 Winfred Yavi Women's 3000 metres steeplechase Bahrain $50,000 $228,000
21 Hamish Kerr Men's high jump New Zealand $50,000 $224,750
22 Cole Hocker Men's 1500 metres United States $50,000 $219,500
23 Nina Kennedy Women's pole vault Australia $50,000 $197,500
24 Sifan Hassan Women's marathon Netherlands $50,000 $196,750
25 Grant Holloway Men's 110 metres hurdles United States $50,000 $176,000
26 Gabby Thomas Women's 200 metres United States $50,000 $141,250
27 Tara Davis-Woodhall Women's long jump United States $50,000 $139,000
28 Thea LaFond Women's triple jump Dominica $50,000 $130,500
29 Joshua Cheptegei Men's 10,000 metres Uganda $50,000 $85,500
30 Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone Women's 400 metres hurdles United States $50,000 $76,000
31 Ethan Katzberg Men's hammer throw Canada $50,000 $70,000
32 Camryn Rogers Women's hammer throw Canada $50,000 $70,000
33 Quincy Hall Men's 400 metres United States $50,000 $50,500
34 Rojé Stona Men's discus throw Jamaica $50,000 $37,500
35 Yemisi Ogunleye Women's shot put Germany $50,000 $33,250
36 Nafissatou Thiam Women's heptathlon Belgium $50,000 $29,250
37 Jordan Díaz Men's triple jump Spain $50,000 $20,500
38 Yang Jiayu Women's 20 kilometres walk China $50,000 $7,000
39 Arshad Nadeem Men's javelin throw Pakistan $50,000 $2,000
40 Markus Rooth Men's decathlon Norway $50,000 $500
41 Tamirat Tola Men's marathon Ethiopia $50,000 —
42 Brian Pintado Men's 20 kilometres walk Ecuador $50,000 —

Every gold paid the same $50,000, so the last column is the one that moves. It is what the Diamond League, the World Championships, the World Indoor Championships, the Ultimate Championship and the World Cross Country Championships have paid that athlete across every season this section holds.

What the circuit pays the same fifteen

Career prize money, against a gold medal worth $50,000

Armand Duplantis $986k Marileidy Paulino $606k Yaroslava Mahuchikh $601k Jakob Ingebrigtsen $575k Noah Lyles $474k Emmanuel Wanyonyi $432k Julien Alfred $423k Miltiadis Tentoglou $421k Rai Benjamin $407k Valarie Allman $391k Masai Russell $386k Faith Kipyegon $380k Beatrice Chebet $350k Haruka Kitaguchi $350k Soufiane El Bakkali $340k

Armand Duplantis has taken $985,750 out of the sport, which is 20 times what the men's pole vault title paid in Paris, and $380,250 more than Marileidy Paulino in second. Taken together the 41 individual champions hold $10,148,500 from the five competitions that pay an athlete by name, against the $2,100,000 their Olympic titles were worth.

The 97 medals that paid nothing

48 silvers and 49 bronzes, at $0 each

The ladder has one rung. 48 golds paid $50,000, and the 48 silvers and 49 bronzes awarded beside them paid nothing, which is 66.9% of every medal handed out on the athletics programme.

178 athletes came away with a medal of some colour. 41 of them were paid by the sport for it.

The six relay golds, and who was actually paid

$300,000 to four federations

$50,000 a title
The relay gold medals at Paris 2024, the country each was paid to, and the squad that ran, with the fifty thousand dollars per title that went to the federation rather than to a runner.
EVENT COUNTRY RUNNERS PAID TO FEDERATION
Men's 4 × 100 metres relay Aaron Brown, Jerome Blake, Brendon Rodney, Andre De Grasse Canada 4 $50,000
Men's 4 × 400 metres relay Christopher Bailey, Vernon Norwood, Bryce Deadmon, Rai Benjamin, Quincy Wilson United States 5 $50,000
Women's 4 × 100 metres relay Melissa Jefferson, Twanisha Terry, Gabby Thomas, Sha'Carri Richardson United States 4 $50,000
Women's 4 × 400 metres relay Shamier Little, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, Gabby Thomas, Alexis Holmes, Quanera Hayes, Aaliyah Butler, Kaylyn Brown United States 7 $50,000
Mixed 4 × 400 metres relay Eugene Omalla, Lieke Klaver, Isaya Klein Ikkink, Femke Bol, Cathelijn Peeters Netherlands 5 $50,000
Mixed marathon walk relay Álvaro Martín, María Pérez Spain 2 $50,000
All six Four countries 27 $300,000

A relay gold is one cheque to the country, and nothing is published about how it is divided or whether it is divided at all. So $300,000 of the $2,400,000 pool never belongs to a person on this page, and none of it is added into an athlete's total anywhere on this site.

Every country that won an Olympic athletics medal

All 43 of them, and the 27 that were paid

$2,400,000 in all
Every country that won an athletics medal at Paris 2024, with its golds, its total medals, and how the prize money splits between the athletes who won individual titles and the federations paid for a relay.
# COUNTRY GOLDS MEDALS TO ATHLETES TO FEDERATION TOTAL
1 United States 14 34 $550,000 $150,000 $700,000
2 Kenya 4 11 $200,000 — $200,000
3 Canada 3 5 $100,000 $50,000 $150,000
4 Netherlands 2 6 $50,000 $50,000 $100,000
5 Spain 2 4 $50,000 $50,000 $100,000
6 Norway 2 3 $100,000 — $100,000
7 Great Britain 1 10 $50,000 — $50,000
8 Australia 1 7 $50,000 — $50,000
9 Jamaica 1 6 $50,000 — $50,000
10 China 1 4 $50,000 — $50,000
11 Ethiopia 1 4 $50,000 — $50,000
12 Germany 1 4 $50,000 — $50,000
13 Belgium 1 3 $50,000 — $50,000
14 Ukraine 1 3 $50,000 — $50,000
15 Bahrain 1 2 $50,000 — $50,000
16 Botswana 1 2 $50,000 — $50,000
17 Ecuador 1 2 $50,000 — $50,000
18 Greece 1 2 $50,000 — $50,000
19 New Zealand 1 2 $50,000 — $50,000
20 Saint Lucia 1 2 $50,000 — $50,000
21 Uganda 1 2 $50,000 — $50,000
22 Dominica 1 1 $50,000 — $50,000
23 Dominican Republic 1 1 $50,000 — $50,000
24 Japan 1 1 $50,000 — $50,000
25 Morocco 1 1 $50,000 — $50,000
26 Pakistan 1 1 $50,000 — $50,000
27 Sweden 1 1 $50,000 — $50,000
28 Italy — 3 — — —
29 Brazil — 2 — — —
30 Grenada — 2 — — —
31 South Africa — 2 — — —
32 Algeria — 1 — — —
33 Croatia — 1 — — —
34 Czechia — 1 — — —
35 France — 1 — — —
36 Hungary — 1 — — —
37 India — 1 — — —
38 Lithuania — 1 — — —
39 Poland — 1 — — —
40 Portugal — 1 — — —
41 Puerto Rico — 1 — — —
42 Qatar — 1 — — —
43 Zambia — 1 — — —

The United States won 14 of the 48 golds and 29.2% of the pool, from 34 medals in all. 16 countries won a medal and were paid nothing for it, because none of those medals was a gold: Italy took 3 of them.

Athletics prize money by country takes the same question across the whole sport rather than one Games, adding the Diamond League and the championships together country by country, with a page for each.

Frequently asked questions

How much do Olympic athletics gold medallists get paid?

$50,000 a gold at Paris 2024, the same figure in every one of the 48 events on the athletics programme, and $2,400,000 in all. 42 of those golds went to a person and six to a relay squad. A silver pays nothing and a bronze pays nothing.

Does the International Olympic Committee pay prize money?

No. The Olympic movement has never paid for a medal, and the money on this page is athletics' own: the sport's governing body pays it out of its share of the broadcast revenue, and Paris 2024 was the first Games at which any sport did it. The $2,400,000 is $2,400,000 set aside for 48 champions, decided by the sport rather than by the Games.

Do Olympic silver and bronze medallists get prize money?

Not at Paris 2024. 145 medals were awarded across the 48 events, 48 of them silver and 49 bronze, and 97 of the 145 carried no cheque at all. Only the 48 golds paid, at $50,000 each. Many countries pay their own medallists on top of that, and those are national schemes rather than anything the sport hands out.

Who won the most Olympic athletics prize money?

The United States, on $700,000 from 14 golds, which is 29.2% of the whole pool. No athlete took more than one gold's worth except Beatrice Chebet, who won the 5000 and the 10,000 metres for Kenya and so collected $100,000. 43 countries won a medal and 27 won a gold.

Is an Olympic gold the biggest prize in athletics?

Not in cash. The 42 individual golds paid $2,100,000 between them, and the 41 athletes who won them have taken $10,148,500 out of the Diamond League and the world championships, 4.8 times as much. Armand Duplantis has won $985,750 on the circuit against the $50,000 the men's pole vault title paid.

Who gets the money when a relay team wins Olympic gold?

The federation. Six relay golds at Paris 2024 were worth $300,000 and every one of them was paid to the country as a single cheque, with no split published between the runners. The United States collected $150,000 of it from three relay titles. Those figures are never added into an athlete's total here.

Where to next

The competitions that pay athletics the rest of the year

Diamond League prize money is the circuit the last column of the first table is drawn from, and it pays every dollar of it to an athlete by name. The athletics section holds each of the competitions on its own, meeting by meeting and event by event, and every champion below who has been paid by one of them has a page here with the Paris gold set against it.

The competitions

Every Paris 2024 champion