Shumita Basu

And while Team USA has more medals than any other country across the summer and winter games, there is a big disparity in how American athletes are compensated for their achievements on the Olympic stage.

The U.S.

government spends zero dollars to reward athletes.

But this year, a grant from billionaire financier Ross Stevens wants to ensure that competitors are walking away with something.

Here's The Wall Street Journal's Rachel Bachman in a video posted to social media explaining the gift.

Stevens made a $100 million donation to the U.S.

Olympic and Paralympic Committee, a record for the organization, to fund these payments.

The money will go to each athlete regardless of how they perform.

Now, to be clear, athletes on Team USA do receive prize money from the Olympic Committee if they medal in their events.

But even then, the U.S.

lags behind a lot of other nations.

Josh Schaefer is a reporter for Yahoo Finance and spoke to the network as the last Winter Games wound down in 2022.

Schaefer said the money isn't insignificant, but the comparison to other countries can feel stark.

Those figures haven't changed since the last Winter Games and barely budged for the Summer Games in Paris in 2024.

Meanwhile, countries like Russia and China offer retirement stipends or pensions, and in South Korea, athletes have earned pensions since the 70s.

Most people think of big-name Olympic athletes and assume they're doing fine.

And the big ones probably are, if they've managed to score endorsement and sponsorship deals.

But many Olympians struggle financially as they train without pay and try to juggle paid work.

Here's what Chris Mazder, the first-ever American man to medal in singles luge, told NBC News.

Jonathan Cheever, who competed in Snowboard for Team USA in Pyeongchang in 2018, had a similar take.