Tokyo Olympics: Nigerian medalists to get $17,500 as medal earnings

The 2020 Summer Olympics branded as Tokyo 2020 came to an end yesterday after its closing ceremony. The competition kicked off on Friday, 23rd of July, 2021 and ended 8th August, 2021 after being postponed for a year due to Covid-19.

Team USA came out on top with a total of 113 medals including 39 gold medals. Team Nigeria ranked 74th on the medals leaderboard out of 86 countries winning a silver and bronze medal.

Blessing Oborodudu won a silver medal for Nigeria in the women’s 68kg freestyle where she came up short against Tamyra Mensah-Stock of Team USA in the Final. She made history as the first Nigerian wrestler to win an Olympic medal.

Ese Brume won Nigeria’s first medal in the Tokyo Olympics where she bagged a bronze medal in the Women’s long jump.

There were also some positives to be taken from the competition, as Enoch Adegoke qualified for the men’s 100 meters final and became the first Nigerian to reach the finals in 25 years. Abiola Ogunbanwo also broke the country’s record in 100m swimming freestyle where she posted a national record of 59.74 seconds in the swimming event.

How much will the medalists be paid?

The International Olympic Committee, the Olympics’ organising body is not responsible for paying athletes that participate in the competition nor does it give out money for prize medals. The onus for paying athletes is on individual nations or private bodies.

Most countries offer monetary rewards to athletes depending on the type of medals they won at the Olympics.

Previously, Nigeria awards her athletes a prize money of $5000 for a gold medal, $3,000 for silver, and $2,000 for bronze as announced by the Director, Federation and Elite Athletes Department (FEAD), Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports Development, Simon Ebohdjaiye.

On Tuesday, Mr Ebohdjaiye made an announcement for a new prize money for athletes to drive home the point that the federal government would always reward superlative performance.

Gold medallist will now be rewarded with $15,000, while silver and bronze medal winners will each get $10,000 and $7,500 dollars respectively.

This means the two Nigerian medalists in the Tokyo Olympics would go home with a prize money of $10,000 approximately N4.1million and $7,500 approximately N3million respectively.