Cashing in on gold

The International Olympic Committee does not offer cash prizes in the belief that the glory of winning a medal is reward enough. However, some participating members offer their athletes mouth-watering incentives to bring home a gold medal. How much were some willing to stump up for a gold medal at Tokyo 2020?

Illustration of a person with blue skin and short dark hair, smiling while biting a gold medal with Olympic rings, and a yellow speech bubble with a dollar sign above their head.

A project to show the amount of money rewarded by countries around the world for each gold medal won. The graph illustrates the reward money offered and the medals earned, displaying the total amount earned.

This project had a print and an online version. Published in the South China Morning Post in August 2021

A graphic illustrating the value of gold medals won by different countries during the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. It shows the number of gold medals, the total cost of medals, and the total medals won for each country, represented by yellow circles and concentric rings.

Print version back page.

Diagram showing the reward figures for different countries, with the USA at the center and others around it, representing Olympic gold medal prize money in USD. The USA's reward is $37,500, with other countries like South Korea, Brazil, Japan, Netherlands, China, South Africa, and Germany listed with their respective prize amounts.

This is the online version, which can be viewed on the South China Morning Post website. Web development was done by the great Dennis Wong, who sadly passed away in 2024.

A newspaper page titled 'Cashing in on gold' discussing the value of Olympic medals, featuring a graphical chart with gold medal values from various countries depicted as circles of different sizes and colors, with labels and monetary values.

A couple views of the print page result

A chart showing the value of gold reserves in different countries. Gold quantities are represented by concentric circles with country names and their gold worth in USD written inside. Countries include the USA, Japan, China, Germany, Brazil, Spain, and others.
Cartoon image of a person biting a gold medal shaped like a dollar sign, with a speech bubble of a dollar sign above.

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All the illustrations and graphics shown in this link are under the copyright of the South China Morning Post.