Israel To Olympians: Win The Gold, Get 500,000 Shekels

(Image: Shahar Zubari, an Israeli contestant in the 2008 Olympics, Credit: Sailing.org)

It looks like Israeli athletes competing in Beijing's 2008 Olympics will have another reason for winning the gold medal--money.

(Globes Online) The Israel Olympic Committee will award gold medalists at the Beijing Olympic Games $140,000 each (NIS 500,000). A silver medalist will get $70,000, and bronze medalist will get about $47,000. The amounts are double prizes handed out at the 2004 Athens Games, when gold medalist Gal Friedman was NIS 240,000 for winning Israel's first Olympic gold.

The Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport will also award bonuses to Olympic medal winners, although the amount has not yet been determined.

This is a great incentive, especially for Shahar Zubari who is representing Israel in the male windsurfing tournament (in place of 2004's Gold winner, Gal Fridman).

Note: Hopefully Micky Cobrin can win the gold for Israel as well, as Fridman must feel awfully lonely as Israel's only gold medalist winner.

Want more good news about Israel?

Enter your email address below to subscribe!

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Have a feed reader? Subscribe via RSS or Atom.