Whereas it might really feel protected to assume Olympic athletes rake within the dough very like different celebrities and public figures, the truth is that many of them maintain on to a number of jobs just to make ends meet. The athletes who characterize the $2 billion international spectacle usually take dwelling at most tens of 1000’s of {dollars}, and many earn nothing immediately from competing.
Plus, the fee of coaching for the Olympics can vary from tens of 1000’s of {dollars} a 12 months to greater than $100,000 for some sports activities. Annual coaching prices in sports activities like snowboarding and skating can run as excessive as 5 and even six figures as soon as flights to competitions, tools, ice time, teaching, bodily remedy, and insurance coverage are factored in. And the Worldwide Olympic Committee doesn’t pay athletes to compete: Athletes solely go dwelling with cash from their nation, which varies broadly relying on their dwelling nation and the medal they obtain.
For instance, a gold medalist in Singapore can anticipate to take dwelling practically $750,000, however one from the U.S. solely banks $38,000, in accordance to the Nationwide Olympic Committee and different native experiences analyzed by CNBC in 2024. These figures additionally don’t account for taxes and different charges, which additional cut back athletes’ incomes potential.
That’s sometimes one of the one methods Olympians take dwelling cash for his or her efforts, though each U.S. Olympian this 12 months will get $200,000, whether or not they medal or not, thanks to a $100 million reward to the US Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC) from billionaire Ross Stevens, the founder and CEO of Stone Ridge Holdings Group. However they gained’t see that cash instantly: The primary $100,000 they’ll obtain at age 45, or 20 years after their first qualifying Olympic look, whichever comes later. The remaining $100,000 might be given as a assured profit for his or her households after they die.
“I don’t consider that monetary insecurity ought to cease our nation’s elite athletes from breaking by way of to new frontiers of excellence,” Stevens mentioned.
Nonetheless, the hole between the Olympic model’s industrial heft and the monetary actuality for athletes is what pushes many American winter athletes into second jobs. Right here are just a few examples of how winter Olympians are making ends meet.
The barista
Alpine skier Keely Cashman, who represented the U.S. within the 2022 Winter Olympics and certified for this 12 months’s video games, spends half of her 12 months behind the counter as a barista on the Serene Bean, a espresso store her household owns in Strawberry, Calif.—a brilliant small city with a inhabitants of solely 86 folks.
Al Bello—Getty Pictures
Rising up in a blue-collar space, Cashman didn’t have as many monetary assets as another athletes do. However by age 12, she went to Tahoe to ski, and it’s the place she nonetheless trains within the offseason.
“Ski racing is clearly a really costly sport. I come from a really blue-collar space,” Cashman informed native information station KSBW. “My brothers and I have been in a position to ski race as a result of my dad was a coach, and that coated some of the prices.”
Whereas Cashman hasn’t disclosed her earnings from being a barista, this cash might help fill within the monetary gaps left by variable federation assist and the absence of main endorsement cash in girls’s velocity occasions, even for Olympians. In accordance to Certainly, baristas in California make a median of $18.90 per hour.
The dealer
Roller Chris Plys additionally works for his household’s enterprise when he’s not competing. Plys, now 38, left school when his father was battling mind most cancers to take over his meals brokerage, Plys Superior Consulting, and nonetheless owns the enterprise in Duluth, Minn.
“It was the primary main factor that I had gone by way of after the Olympics, and I just was forced to develop up quick,” he informed USA Right now.
Dustin Satloff—Getty Pictures
He now balances working the agency with coaching and competing for Workforce USA in males’s and combined doubles curling. Again in 2010, Plys had additionally competed on actuality present Financial institution of Hollywood to assist pay for his mother and father to watch him compete within the 2010 Vancouver Olympics as an alternate; the journey price $6,500. Plys additionally competed within the 2022 Beijing Video games. He was nonetheless taking part in vice-skip on John Shuster’s group and competed within the U.S. Olympic Curling Workforce Trials for Milano-Cortina 2026 in late 2025, but it surely’s unclear whether or not he’ll compete this 12 months.
The dentist
When Tara Peterson isn’t curling, she’s a training dentist in White Bear Lake, Minn., at Isaacson Mild Dentistry. Peterson’s mother and father, a dentist and a dental hygienist, joined a curling league and signed up Tara and her older sister, Tabitha, for a junior curling league in St. Paul, which is what launched Peterson’s profession.
Elsa—Getty Pictures
Tara made her Olympic debut as the lead alongside her sister, Tabitha, who was the skip on the 2022 Winter Olympic Video games in Beijing, the place they completed sixth. Tabitha can be within the well being care discipline, working as a pharmacist. The median wage for dentists in 2024 was about $180,000, in accordance to Bureau of Labor Statistics information, and pharmacists make about $140,000. Each Tara and Tabitha certified for the 2026 Olympics.
The artist
Freestyle moguls skier Bradley Wilson, a three-time Olympian, created his personal enterprise promoting unique art work, referred to as Bradley Wilson Studios.
Patrick Smith—Getty Pictures
“Like most sports activities, snowboarding has an offseason, and I had to keep productive. So in the course of the summer season in Park Metropolis, I began to mess around with portray, and like my ski profession, the artwork began to progress and started to take off,” Wilson wrote on his website. “I’ve been promoting work for 3 years now, and it has been an enormous assist to pay for my bills in my ski profession.”
He additionally has a number of sponsors listed, together with Deer Valley Resort and snow helmet firm Giro. Wilson sells prints for about $50 every and work for up to $600. He competed within the 2014, 2018, and 2022 Olympics.
A model of this story was printed on Fortune.com on February 3, 2026.
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