{"id":483072,"date":"2026-02-18T13:30:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T13:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/483072\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T13:30:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T13:30:14","slug":"canadas-sarault-has-earned-55k-for-her-3-medals-so-far-if-she-were-italian-it-would-be-nearly-7-times-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/483072\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada’s Sarault has earned $55K for her 3 medals so far. If she were Italian, it would be nearly 7 times that"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Follow Winter Olympic SportsPersonalize Your Feed<\/p>\n

Courtney Sarault sat at a picnic table in the sun at the Olympic Village, her latest medal \u2014 a silver in women’s short track 1,000 metres, to join the silver and bronze she\u2019d already won in Milan \u2014 gleaming beside her. She had put four years of hard work and hope into Monday morning\u2019s race. Her prize, by the most basic of measures, was a surprisingly heavy chunk of metal on a ribbon.<\/p>\n

As Canada\u2019s most decorated athlete so far, she will also collect $55,000 when she gets home: $15,000 for each of her silvers, $10,000 for her bronze, and an additional $5,000 for each medal from the foundation established by Sanjay Malaviya, a health-care technology entrepreneur.<\/p>\n

Sarault knew, the way all Canadian athletes know, that winning has its financial rewards. She was surprised when she was told the exact figure.<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay, there\u2019s some cash flow,\u201d she said. \u201cThanks for letting me know. When I\u2019m back in my condo paying my bills, that will be nice to have.\u201d<\/p>\n

But if she were Italian, she\u2019d be receiving a cheque for about $389,000. If she were Polish, she\u2019d be coming home to about $211,000, as well as a furnished apartment, a car, and a collection of gifts that might include artwork or jewelry.<\/p>\n

And if she were Singaporean, she could look forward to finding about $1,350,000 in the bank.<\/p>\n

\"AItalian speed skater Francesca Lollobrigida has earned the equivalent of $584,000 Cdn for her two gold medals in Milano Cortina. (AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

The host Italians, racking up medals in record numbers, have been especially vocal about their windfalls. \u201cWhen you hear that,\u201d Sarault said, \u201cyou\u2019re definitely like, Oh, wow, okay. Good for you guys!\u201d<\/p>\n

What Canada\u2019s medallists receive is part of the wider conversation about funding that happens every Olympic year.<\/p>\n

The money for medals \u2014 a gold is worth $20,000 \u2014 isn\u2019t from taxpayers. It comes out of the Canadian Olympic Committee\u2019s Excellence Fund, which funnels corporate sponsorship dollars to our most successful high-performance athletes.<\/p>\n

Adam van Koeverden, the secretary of state for sport and a former Olympic kayaker, said in a recent interview that there are no plans for the federal government to pay athletes directly for winning medals.<\/p>\n

Neither, for comparison\u2019s sake, does Norway or Great Britain, whose medallists don\u2019t receive financial bonuses.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think of it less as a reward and more as justice.- Adam van Koeverden on medal bonus<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do more on the upstream,\u201d van Koeverden said. \u201cMy goal is to invest in athletes and the ecosystem so it\u2019s possible to win more medals. That\u2019s our governmental responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

National-team athletes earn a monthly stipend of about $2,100.<\/p>\n

But van Koeverden recognizes the value of rewarding medallists: He was a leading voice in the fight for money for medals when he was paddling. \u201cI competed before, during, and after the conversation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t receive money for his first three Olympic medals in 2004 or 2008. His last medal, a silver in 2012, came with $15,000.<\/p>\n

For him, that money represented a kind of equalization payment. (Officially, medal bonuses count as employment income and are taxed.) Corporate sponsors might value certain athletes and sports more than others, but every medal counts on medal tables, and every athlete who stands on a podium has earned his or her place on it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believed it was just, because it\u2019s marketing money, and all of those sponsors benefit when any athlete wins,\u201d van Koeverden said. \u201cI think of it less as a reward and more as justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AFormer cyclist Kelsey Mitchell is now competing in bobsled for Canada at the Milano-Cortina Games. It costs her $20,000 to be part of the team. (The Canadian Press)<\/p>\n

Kelsey Mitchell, who won a gold medal in sprint cycling in Tokyo, is competing again for Canada as a bobsledder in Milano Cortina. She\u2019s seen up close the uncomfortable calculus that sometimes comes with making a career in amateur athletics, where every taxpayer dollar might have also been spent on education, healthcare, or infrastructure.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s enough incentive to medal,\u201d she said. \u201cNo athlete in Canada does it for the money. But to get $20,000 in your pocket is phenomenal. Any money matters.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coincidentally, the $20,000 she earned for her cycling medal is the same amount the struggling bobsleigh team, which is using German sleds from 2018, charges its athletes to be part of it. A new sled would cost about what Italy pays for a bronze.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we have to decide, where do we want to put our money?\u201d Mitchell said. \u201cIs it in high performance, so people can look up and see Canadians achieving great things and try to pursue that? Or should we put it in grassroots, and get more people in sports? I don\u2019t know where it\u2019s more beneficial. These are decisions I wouldn\u2019t know how to make.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Sarault, who has two more chances to medal, it\u2019s not a debate she\u2019ll be having the next time she\u2019s in her starting position, waiting for the race of her life to begin.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t enter my mind when I skate, when I\u2019m on the ice,\u201d she said. \u201cThe look in my eyes isn\u2019t for money. It\u2019s for my love of the sport, my love of competition.\u201d<\/p>\n

But for Canadians, the question remains: What\u2019s that love worth?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Follow Winter Olympic SportsPersonalize Your Feed Courtney Sarault sat at a picnic table in the sun at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":483073,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-483072","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=483072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/483073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}