In the hunt for gold medal the Philippine government and a group of donations from businessmen, they have raised some US$220,000 for any Philippine athlete who can struck gold at the Olympics

The land of Pinoy won their last gold back in 1924 Olympic games in Paris, and the closest they came to winning gold again, was a silver in the 1996 Atalanta Olympics from boxing

Talking about rewards, our very own Singapore does have its own reward system called Multi-Million Dollar Awards Programme or MAP. Olympic gold medalist are expected to get a windfall of SG$1 million or US$710,000. Here’s a breakdown

Olympic Games

• Individual
  1. Gold – $1 million
  2. Silver – $500,000
  3. Bronze – $250,000
• Team event
  1. Gold – $1.5 million
  2. Silver – $750,000
  3. Bronze – $375,000
• Team sport
  1. Gold – $2 million
  2. Silver – $1 million
  3. Bronze – $500,000

Asian Games

• Individual
  1. Gold – $175,000
  2. Silver – $125,000
  3. Bronze – $62,500
• Team event
  1. Gold – $250,000
  2. Silver – $200,000
  3. Bronze – $100,000
• Team sport
  1. Gold – $350,000
  2. Silver – $250,000
  3. Bronze – $125,000

Commonwealth Games

• Individual
  1. Gold – $100,000
  2. Silver – $50,000
  3. Bronze – $25,000
• Team event
  1. Gold – $150,000
  2. Silver – $75,000
  3. Bronze – $37,500
• Team sport
  1. Gold – $200,000
  2. Silver – $100,000
  3. Bronze – $50,000

SEA Games

• Individual
  1. Gold – $10,000
  2. Silver – Nil
  3. Bronze – Nil
• Team event
  1. Gold – $15,000
  2. Silver – Nil
  3. Bronze – Nil
• Team sport
  1. Gold – $30,000
  2. Silver – Nil
  3. Bronze – Nil

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The monetary rewards are awarded to winning athlete and not the national sports body they’re from. Of course its taxable, you can’t run away from that. Such financial reward is a boost to an athlete of course, but I feel the money would be more well spent on the current development of our athlete and coaches instead, rather awarded of the end result.

I’ve seen struggling athletes who are on shoe-string budgets and considering the state of our local athletics, we’re not even on par with the MAP rewards on SEA Games level. Our teams won’t even come close to ‘smelling’ and reaps such rewards.

I’d say ‘re-build our bridges’, generate more interest in athletics; as it needs more exposure, improve local athletics in terms of having a better and conducive environment for training and possibility to carve a career out of it, more support & jobs for local coaches and guiding the potential juniors to transition into the senior squad; as we are losing plenty of our young talent, as most of them are ‘frustrated’ and disillusioned with the current system