How Olympic athletes make money

With no financial reward for scoring an Olympic medal, cashing in on Olympic success is less straight forward than you may think.

The International Olympic Committee will hand out more than 300 medals over the course of the Paris Games, but it won't hand out any cash.

"The Olympics has always supposedly been about striving to be the best, without doing it for financial reasons," said Ben Bloom, a sports journalist who has covered the Olympic Games for over a decade.

"There is a lot of unhappiness amongst athletes across every single sport who compete at the Olympics, with regards to the financial compensation that they receive for being the stars of the show. Without them, there would be no Olympics," Bloom told CNBC Sport.

Sport governing body World Athletics is stepping in somewhat to cover the deficit. Gold medal winners in 48 disciplines will receive a $50,000 cash prize, and it will be extending the winnings to silver and bronze track and field medalists in 2028.

And what about the countries these athletes are representing?

"Some countries do financially reward their athletes, some quite handsomely," Bloom said.

A gold medal winner from Hong Kong or Singapore, for instance, can expect more than $700,000 for their podium finish. Gold medalists from the USA earn $38,000. However, other nations like Great Britain, Sweden and Norway offer no cash prize.

This makes cashing in on Olympic success more complicated than you would expect.

Sponsorships and grants play a role– but an unfortunate turn like an injury can easily derail those sources of income.

"Very early on, I got a lot of help and support from sponsors," said Desiree Henry, a sprinter competing for Britain at Paris 2024. "But then, like many athletes know, injuries aren't just a physical thing. It changed my whole life. I went from having multiple sponsors to not having any sponsors."

"A lot of athletes, that's all we're looking for, that opportunity, just to be able to train back full time, because we know what we can achieve. But we also know the reality is that things are expensive, and we do need that financial help and support," Henry added.

For artistic swimmers Kate Shortman and Isabelle Thorpe, it was the funding they received before competing at the 2024 Olympics they valued most. The British athletes finished second in the artistic swimming duet event after China.

"It takes that stress off. If you're really passionate about your sport, you don't need money. We're just super lucky that we've been able to receive this funding and take the pressure off of it," Isabelle Thorpe told CNBC.

"We've only been [funded] for one year, and I think we can see in our results, it's been a massive upward trajectory since we've been on it," Kate Shortman said.

Find out more about how Olympic athletes cash in on their dream by watching the video above.

The Business of Elite Athletes: Part 1 -    • Why becoming an Olympic athlete is so...  
The Business of Elite Athletes: Part 3 -    • The end of a dream: What happens when...  

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