Getting on the podium at the bottom of the slopes will have the same value in Italy in 2026 as in Paris in 2024, the sports ministry has promised. Despite the budgetary context, a decree published in Official Journal on October 23 indicates that the bonuses for French athletes who won medals at the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Milan-Cortina, next February and March, will be maintained at the same level as those for Paris 2024.
Skiers, skaters and other medal-winning winter sports athletes will be able to receive €80,000 for gold, €40,000 for silver and €20,000 for bronze. “This is the first time that we will have such high prize money for the Winter Games”welcomed the Minister of Sports, Marina Ferrari. During the last winter games in Beijing, China, athletes could hope to win €65,000, €25,000 or €15,000 depending on where they finished on the podium. Figures also corresponding to the amounts paid during the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC), which does not provide any financial compensation to medalists, does not govern these bonuses offered to athletes. These are most often established at the discretion of the states of the champions. In France, an athlete can accumulate the bonuses for his different medals. Thus Léon Marchand, who won four gold medals and a bronze medal, would have, according to the official bonus table, won at least €340,000.
Equity to defend
The bonuses granted to athletes in the Winter Games have not always been aligned with those of previous “summer” Olympics. If the amounts for the Winter Games increased significantly from the 2000s, a difference persists between the two Olympics: when the gold medalists won €50,000 in Athens in 2004, the athletes who came in first place under the snow in Turin in 2006 won instead €35,000.
The rapprochement takes place from the Sochi Games, in Russia, in 2014. The bonuses then correspond to those established during the London Games, namely €50,000 for gold, €20,000 for silver and €13,000 for bronze. The amounts remain the same between the Summer Games and the following Winter Games.
If these performance bonuses have been subject to tax since the Vancouver Winter Olympics in 2010, athletes from the Rio Summer Games found themselves exceptionally exempt in 2016. Two years later, winter athletes may therefore receive the same bonus, but they did not benefit, in the first place, from this tax exemption.
The five-time Olympic biathlon champion Martin Fourcade and the eight-time Paralympic ski champion Marie Bochet then wrote to the Ministry of Sports to denounce the situation. « In the interest of fairness between the athletes of the Winter and Summer Games »the ministry therefore decides a posteriori on the “tax exemption of bonuses for medal-winning athletes at the PyeongChang Olympic and Paralympic Games”.
The bonuses become taxable again for the Tokyo Games in 2021. For the 2026 Winter Games, “we remain on exactly the same system as Paris 2024” said the Minister of Sports, Marina Ferrari. “It should be remembered that high-level athletes have the possibility, if they request it, to spread the taxation linked to their medal over four years. »
Cumulative bonuses
The bonuses paid by the French State were designed to compensate for the precariousness of athletes. When France began its payments in 1984, it was a matter of indirectly supporting its athletes, some of whom were still amateurs. Since amateurism was banned by the IOC, the French state has continued its financial support to maintain high-level sport.
In addition to these national bonuses, those awarded by certain local authorities can be added: in 2024, the Aix-Marseille-Provence metropolis, for example, awarded up to €10,000 more to Olympic medalists licensed on its territory. Some international sports federations, such as the World Athletics and the International Boxing Federation in 2024, have also financially rewarded their champions.
With “ the strong objective » from the Ministry of Sports to have “50% more medals compared to the last Winter Games” for the French delegation, the budget must be planned accordingly. During the last Winter Olympics in Beijing, in 2022, the French delegation collected 14 medals, including five gold, seven silver and two bronze, and 12 medals at the Paralympic Games.
