THE 2020 Olympic Games are finally up and running, after being delayed by a year – and team GB are already up and running.

An extra year did no harm to the chances of British judoka Chelsie Gile and taekwondo practitioner Bradley Sinden, who took home bronze and silver medals on the second day of competition.

But, the home nations, including Gwent’s three competing athletes will be hoping to go one step further, with the ultimate prize of a gold medal in their sights.

According to research, the medal itself isn’t the only prize on offer for many athletes competing at the games – as many countries will offer athletes a cash bonus for bringing home the gold.

With roughly 300 gold medals on offer, some Olympic committees will dish out the extra incentive to athletes.

Even then, the amounts differ, with some nations paying more than £100,000 in previous Olympic games.

Unfortunately for British athletes, team GB are one of the only major nations who haven’t offered a cash bonus in recent years – with national pride and the medal itself believed by team bosses to be prize enough.

But, with Team GB enjoying hugely successful campaigns at London 2012 and Rio 2016, there is nothing to suggest that the team’s athletes lack any sort of motivation to achieve their best.

The study, carried out by digital coaching provider Ezra looked at the top 10 best performing countries at the 2016 Olympic Games, publishing the cash prizes awarded to gold medallists in US Dollars.

Their findings can be found below.

Look: The most successful Olympic nations in 2016, how many gold medal were won, and how much a gold medal is worth

Italy: eight, $185,000

Russia: 19, $62,600

United States: 46, $25,000

China: 26, $30,000            

France: 10, $66,000           

Japan: 12, $49,900             

South Korea: nine, $53,800   

Germany: 17, $22,600       

Australia: eight, $15,000         

Great Britain: 27, $0

What has been said about the research?

Founder of Ezra, Nick Goldberg, said: “Olympic athletes have an unbelievable amount of dedication, resilience, and courage, not to mention skill and technical ability. They need to, as winning gold requires an unimaginable amount of work.

“Money is often used to motivate hard work. Sometimes, it works very effectively, but there are limitations that we can see reflected in this data.

“If money was the best motivator, the best way of creating individual and collective success, we would expect the top of the medals table to be populated by those nations that award their athletes the most prize money. But that’s not what we see at all. Instead, the most generous prize money is provided by Italy and yet they finish only ninth in the table with a total of eight gold medals.”

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