| RM1 Million Incentive For Olympic Gold Medallist |
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KUALA LUMPUR, June 24 (Bernama) -- Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak Tuesday announced a RM1 million incentive for the country's athletes who bagged the gold medal in the coming Olympic Games in Beijing.
This is an increase compared to the RM160,000 offered in previous Olympics.
The deputy prime minister said although the amount might be big, it befitted the standard of the prestigious sporting event.
"To win a gold medal is not easy because the competition is getting tougher. We can see that from one Olympics to another, the standard is increasing.
"We should therefore set a higher target, and provide a more attractive incentive," he told reporters after chairing the cabinet committee on sports development's meeting here.
Najib said neighbouring countries had also set a high amount of incentive to their Olympic gold medallists.
In Singapore, he said, the incentive was S$1 million.
He said the RM1 million reward was apt as the Olympics was a globally-celebrated event and held only once in four years.
Najib said the meeting also agreed to give RM300,000 in incentive to silver medallists and RM100,000 to those who won the bronze.
For teams which won the gold medal, Najib said, players would receive a minimum of RM150,000 each.
Najib said the monthly pension for Olympic medal winners would also be increased -- from RM3,000 to RM5,000 for the gold medallist, RM1,500 to RM3,000 for the silver and RM1,000 to RM2,000 for the bronze.
All rates are effective next month.
At the moment, Malaysia has five Olympic medallists namely the men's doubles badminton pair of Razif and Jailani Sidek (1992 Barcelona Olympics bronze medallist), men's doubles pair of Cheah Soon Kit-Yap Kim Hock (1996 Atlanta Olympics silver medallist) and men's singles shuttler Rashid Sidek (Atlanta Olympics bronze medallist).
-- BERNAMA
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