The Price of Gold

Through the world of Twitter, we are starting to see that athletes are descending on Daegu, South Korea, for the IAAF World Championships. We have already witnessed complaints ranging from the length of the journey to missing baggage.

But all the pre-Worlds chatter will be dismissed with the Games begin on August 27 and the athletes' focus returns to a successful competition. Have you ever wondered what a successful competition yields (besides a medal and acclaim)?

Well, keep in mind that a world-record performance (improving an IAAF record, not matching one) pays an additional $100,000 on top of the prize money (thanks to Toyota and TDK).

It turns out the World Championships have an overall purse of more than $8 million, which is more than the purse of The Masters, the annual golf championship in Georgia. But it is less than half of the overall payout of Wimbledon.

The biggest purse in all of sport? The 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa paid out a staggering $420 million, including $30 million to champion Spain.

Here's the low-down from Daegu:

Individual events

Relay events

Answer: Little bit of a trick question, actually. If Bolt matched his performance with three gold medals and the exact same times, he'd get $140,000 as the record bonus comes from record breaking, not record tying. But if he improved his 100m and 200m world records, even by .01, and won gold on a relay his South Korean payday would be $340,000.