How Much Prize Money Can American Swimmers Earn at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games?

While there is no formal prize money offered by World Aquatics or the International Olympic Committee at the Paris 2024 Summer Olympic Games, there are still big financial rewards on the line.

Besides the immeasurable indirect career and endorsement opportunities that come from winning gold, some countries offer prize money (Joseph Schooling’s famous $SGP1 million prize from Singapore in 2016), while others offer less-tangible rewards, like military deferments in South Korea.

There is no direct prize money for Olympic success in swimming – though World Athletics drew attention and ire of their peers by offering $2.4 million in Olympic prize money in Paris – but American athletes have access to the Operation Gold program.

This program awards prize money to medalists at the Olympic Games (and other major international meets in non-Olympic years). This prize money is exempt from NCAA rules that still disallow athletes from receiving prize money for their athletic results in most cases.

There have historically been two Operation Gold pools for USA Swimmers to draw from: one from the USOPC, and another from USA Swimming.

USOPC Operation Gold Money

• 1st place – $37,500
• 2nd place – $22,500
• 3rd place – $15,000

This prize money remains the same from the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

At the most recent Olympics in Beijing, these payouts amounted to $5.6 million.

USA Swimming offered Operation Gold payouts at the 2016 Olympic Games, but offer no information about Operation Gold programs on their website. A USA Swimming spokesperson did not respond to a request for more information about a USA Swimming Operation Gold program.

Coaches’ Incentives

USA Swimming does offer a Coach Incentive Program that offers a distribution of funds to coaches of individual (American) Olympic medalists in the pool and in open water.

While USA Swimming doesn’t define how much money is available in this prize pool, it does share who is eligible.

A. Primary Coach:
The coach who is the coach of the athlete at the time of the medal-winning performance at the Operation Gold Competition. The coach must have been coaching the athlete for at least 90 consecutive days within a 24-month period prior to the medal-winning performance at the Operation Gold Competition.

B. University Coach:
The Head Coach of the University program who coached the athlete during his/her years at University. (If a University Coach is the Primary Coach, they may not receive credit twice. The University Coach must have coached the athlete for two college seasons at the time of the medal-winning performance at the Operation Gold Competition to receive University Coach credit.)

C. Developmental Coach:
The coach(es) who provided the training foundation for these athletes during a minimum of 24 consecutive months of the “critical development years” (ages 11-18).

D. Post Developmental Coach:
Any coach who has coached the athlete for at least 24 consecutive months from age 18 onwards.

Primary coaches receive four shares of funding for a gold medal performance, two shares for a silver medal performance, and one share for a bronze medal performance. Coaches who coached an athlete for five years or more consecutive years during their career receive an extra share.

The available dollars will be divided by the total number of shares to determine the value of each share.

• Read more about the Coaches’ Incentive program here.