At the beginning of August Vladimir Putin set the bonuses for all Russian athletes who win medals at World and European championships in Olympic sports. The estimated reward for a gold medal at a world championship is $7,000, a silver medal at $3,500, and a bronze medal at $2,100. A gold medal at a European championship is worth $3,500, silver $1,750 and bronze $1,005. This averages out as $4,200 for world medals and $2,100 for European ones. So it seems that, for the Prime Minister, the world is twice as important as Europe. It is not known what he based this decision on. However if we were to compare Europe and the world by a variety of indicators we would not get a ratio of 1:2. So, the value of a European medal could have been different, especially if we were to take the value of a world medal as a constant.
For example, at 10 million square kilometres, Europe occupies 6.7% of the total world landmass (149 million square kilometres) and on that basis a European medal works out at $281. At 733 million people, Europe's population is 10.8% of the population of the world as a whole (6.77 billion people), hence the award should be valued at $454. There are 193 countries in the world and there are 46, or 23.8% of them, in Europe. That means the medal should be rewarded to the tune of $1,000. At $19.6 trillion, Europe's GDP accounts for 28.1% of the global GDP ($69.7 trillion, according to World Bank data in 2008). Consequently the medal should bring its winner $1,180. Europe is more profitable in comparison with the world in terms of GDP per capita: Europe's $26.7 thousand works out as 259% of the global GDP per capita figure of $10.3 thousand. This means that the best case scenario for a Russian athlete who wins at a European championship would be $10,878, five times more than the sum set by Mr Putin.
Alexander Kukolevsky