The Money Report: Malaysia’s Incentives for Olympic Medalists

Earlier, we reported that Malaysia is giving a monthly allowance of RM1,000 (equivalent to US$318.557 according to this currency site) to its athletes who qualified for Beijing.

But does Malaysia give incentives to athletes who win an Olympic medal as Azerbaijan does? The answer is yes. This is the current incentive scheme according to Malaysia’s staronline:

Under the current NSC incentive scheme, an Olympic gold is worth RM160,000 while it is RM80,000 for a silver and RM40,000 for a bronze.

The pension scheme that takes effect after the athlete retires currently awards RM3,500 for a gold, RM1,500 for a silver and RM1,000 for a bronze.

However, expect Beijing medalists to receive higher amounts as sports officials recently agreed to raise the incentives since the current one is “too low compared to what some countries are giving”.

To date, Malaysia has the following Olympic medalists:

* Cheah Soon Kit and Yap Kim Hock: silver medal, badminton men’s doubles, 1996 Atlanta Olympics

* Rashid Sidek : bronze medal, badminton men’s singles, 1996 Atlanta Games

* Jalani Sidek and Razif Sidek: bronze medal, badminton doubles, 1992 Barcelona Games