After the gold: A look at how some Olympic champions are being welcomed home
As soon as Letsile Tebogo crossed the finish line and won the 200-meter-sprint at the Paris Olympics, people in his home country of Botswana started dancing in the streets.
The celebrations continued, and when Tebogo returned home last week, more than 20,000 people filled the country’s biggest stadium to welcome him back.
Tebogo gave a short speech thanking the crowd and the government for their support.
“To the government for flying my family over to see me do great [things],” he said, “I’m grateful for that also.”
Winning a gold medal at the Olympics is a massive accomplishment. And some athletes who reach the top of the podium receive much more than that glittering piece of hardware. However, whether cash prizes belong at the Olympic Games has become a topic of debate.
In Botswana, the money that helped fund Tebogo has now dried up. The president’s office has asked people to donate to a reward fund for the country’s Olympians.
This type of reward is uncommon. What’s more typical is for athletes to either receive no prize money at all — like in the United Kingdom and Sweden — or receive a lot of cash.
Team Hong Kong’s Vivian Kong is getting over $750,000 for her fencing gold medal.
In the Philippines, athletes were greeted in the capital, Manila, last week with parades and a ceremony at the president’s palace. The team’s star gymnast, Carlos Yulo, also received $100,000, free food and haircuts for life, and a new place to call home — a fully-furnished condo unit, complete with a coffee table designed like an Olympic gold medal.
Meanwhile, in Pakistan, Arshad Nadeem brought home the javelin gold and reportedly got nearly $600,000 and two new cars — plus free gas for life. As a finishing touch, his new license plate number is 92.97 — the distance that won him the gold in Paris.
Newly minted Olympic medallists are also likely to receive a bonus from their sponsors or even an entirely new, bigger sponsor.
Track and field
The sports governing body, World Athletics, has also created a new money stream for track and field athletes.
In a first-of-its-kind plan, the group gave every Olympic track and field champion $50,000.
Thea LaFond-Gadson, who won gold in the triple jump for the small island nation of Dominica, is one of the first athletes ever to receive prize money from an international sports governing body.
“I want to say within like 48 hours after I competed, I had the paperwork in hand,” she said. “They were very quick with it.”
She said she plans to put the money toward a down payment on a house. She had managed to be a part of two previous Olympics by working full-time as a teacher.
“It was honestly a way to get access to a gym,” she explained, “because I could lift in the building in the morning.”
Pushback from the IOC
The International Olympic Committee (IOC), however, is against these types of payments.
Its members think that sports federations should focus on reducing inequalities between countries instead of handing out prizes to winners.
Thea LaFond-Gadson disagrees and thinks the IOC should hand over a check.
“Making the Olympics is honestly one of the hardest journeys you could possibly go on for your athletic career,” she said. “And so, I think that if they were just to help out a little bit, financially, it would be amazing.”
But that’s unlikely to happen, according to Mark Conrad, a sports law professor at Fordham University.
“I think it’s theoretically possible if there’s enough pressure on the IOC in future years to do that,” Conrad said. “But I think as more and more countries do pay athletes, in a way, the IOC is going to say that is being taken care of by various countries if they wish to do so.”
The problem is that it’s inconsistent and varies from country to country.
LaFond-Gadson said that she hasn’t received any bonuses or gifts from Dominica since her win. But she said she is looking forward to a warm welcome when she returns to the island later this month.