By Joseph Schooling, Singapore’s first gold medal Olympic winner, claimed “$1 million” from the Singapore National Olympic Council (SNOC) that comes with the winning.
Schooling had won at the 100m butterfly event at Rio Olympics 2016 on 13 August. He completed the race in just 50.39s which broke the Olympics Games record which beat the previous record of 50.58s by Michael Phelps in 2008 Olympics Games held in Beijing.
It is believed that SNOC would hold an appreciation dinner when Schooling is back in the town to honour the Team Singapore’s Olympians and present the $1 million monetary award, which is part of the Multi-Million-Dollar Awards Programme (MAP) sponsored by the Tote Board and Singapore Pools. The MAP awards are designed to reward medallists at major Games.
The SNOC has determined that 20 percent of the award would be given to the SSA for training and development. According to the tax calculator made available by the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore, Schooling will have to pay $150,150 for his income in 2016. Therefore, Schooling would probably get $645,850 after taxes.
Read: Schooling probably will get $650,000, instead of $1 million for his gold medal
Schooling stated that he had not decided yet on how he is going to spend the money. He said, “I don’t really know. My parents have always managed my finances and I’ll let them decide what to do.”
His father, Colin Schooling, said to the media at the Parkway Parade office, “We borrowed money from banks to pay for his education and training so this will help cover (some of the loans). The beauty of it is my son actually told us: Mummy and daddy, don’t worry, just use (the money) to pay off the loans.”
Schooling’s father had spent more than S$1 million of his own money for his son to come to this stage in his sporting career.
This includes covering his five years at a private college preparatory school, Bolles School. He also spends around S$56,000 at the Florida-based school a year. He also rents an apartment for S$3,808 a month on top of living expenses and other incidentals such as flights and accommodation and even physiotherapy.
Schooling had earned the MAP in recent years. He was given S$31,250 for winning all of his nine races at SEA Games in 2015.
He won one silver at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games and one gold, one silver and one bronze at the Incheon Asian Games in 2014. Therefore, Schooling earned S$370,000 for four medals he won.
Schooling is also a Sports Excellence Scholar and belongs to the highest of three tiers. Supposedly, Schooling is to receive $90,000 annually.