Quarter of a Million Dollar Bonuses for Kazakh Gold Medal Winners

Many countries reward their successful Olympic athletes with cash bonuses. Ex-Soviet states are proving especially generous when it comes to Winter Olympic medals and none more so than Kazakhstan who is offering $250,000 for each gold medal taken home by its athletes at the games.

The small nation of Latvia is the second most generous with a reward of $192,000 for its gold-winning competitors. Italy rounds off the top three with a cash bonus of $189,800 for its winning participants. The United States is far behind in seventeenth place, paying its gold medal winners $25,000. This is still much better than the United Kingdom where the athletes receive no cash prize for their medals.