8/11/2012

How rich and poor countries reward their Olympians



The Olympic Games is facing a parallel contest in how countries reward their winners in addition to the Olympic medals. Poorer countries were more conservative while the rich countries were more lavish.
Poor countries like Britain and New Zealand were quite stingy on the rewards. The cheap British probably did not have much money to spare and only offered to put the pictures of the winners in their postage stamps. Really cheapskate. It is quite pathetic really for Great Britain to save on the pennies. Some poorer countries did not even offer anything and the support and Olympic medals are considered good enough a recognition. 

New Zealand could not afford instant cash but a $60k grant for a year, maybe to study or whatever for a gold medal. Australia and the USA were not much better, offering A$20k and US$25k respectively.
China was a bit richer and paid their winners a healthier S$99,500. But it was outshone by richer countries like the Philippines, $146k and Russia and the other ‘tan’ countries with payouts of US$135k to US$250k.

The richer countries like Malaysia and Singapore were more generous and their purse strings were looser. Malaysia offered $410k for a gold but is a far distant second to the richest country in the world, Singapore. The latter offered its gold medalist a handsome $1m.

Athletes and sports people would definitely find it more rewarding to represent the richer countries than the poorer Europeans or Americans. Like they say, money talks wonders. How rich a country is cannot lie. Whether they can or cannot pay their winners is a sure sign of the monetary well beings of the countries. Singapore’s open door policy on immigration is going to get a boost. If the 4 Jamaican runners were to make a queue here, Singapore can be assured of a few golds and silvers in the Rio. It is time to send some feelers out.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

An Olympian represents the hopes, aspirations, difficulties and challenges faced by his country.

The journey of an Olympian to an Olympic medal is a mirror of his country's journey to success in overcoming the difficulties and challenges.

Somehow, in Singapore's case, this is not felt to be the case.

And I think our Leeders still can't figure out why.
Still clueless.
Good!
Keep hearing the good stuff.
Keep reading the Straits Times.

Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

http://www.perthnow.com.au/sport/london-olympics/australian-olympic-swimmers-lucky-to-be-on-minimum-wage/story-fn9dj0r8-1226447866084

Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

Thankfully the MERITOCRACY based PRIVATE SECTOR rewards INDIVIDUAL achievement in more honorable ways (they don't use tax payer funding) that any state can:

http://www.perthnow.com.au/sport/london-olympics/athletes-set-to-take-olympic-gold-glory-to-the-bank/story-fn9dj0r8-1226446208936

And why not? When a medal is won, the individual is acknowledged FIRST, then the stupid cuntree.

Anonymous said...

Confirm Singapore is now the richest country in the world,fantastic achievement of PAP,don't blame Malaysia,acting to be rich,but we should understand that Malaysians take successful Singapore as a model now very seriously.many people in Singapore should be very happy for such achievement.

Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

When evaluating the (so-called) "success" of Singapore, and ascribing those achievements to government policies, actions or the character of government officials, it might b worthwhile to pay attention to the likelihood of errors in judgement due to COGNITIVE BIASES.

Here are some probabilities:

1. Self serving bias
2. System Justification bias
3. Just world hypothesis
4. Illusory superiority
5. Fundamental attribution error
6. Availability heuristic
7. Expectation bias
8. Belief bias
9. Confirmation bias
10. Illusion of control

...and more Refer to List of cognitive biases

People tend to over analyse. How about this for a theory...LUCK (i.e. fortuitous RANDOM events) played a HUGE FACTOR in the so-called "success" of Singapore.

Anonymous said...

Who is over analysing? Have you heard of childish fantasies?

Anonymous said...

don't forget US athletes have multi_million dollars endorsement deals...

theonion said...

Redbean

Malaysia is more generous as you are converting back to US$.

They are multimillion ringgit rewards.

Chua Chin Leng蔡镇龍 aka redbean said...

Yep, if Lee Chong Wei won, one gold bar included, and also life long pension for all gold medal winners.