Olympic Gold Medal = RM1million

The generous Malaysian government insisted that there should be a lucrative incentive to motivate the athletes to work harder for an Olympics Medal. The Deputy Prime Minister announced recently that a gold medalist in the coming Beijing will receive RM1mil from the government. On top of that, they will also receive RM5k a month for the rest of their lives. These have not taken into account other incentives from the sports council, state government etc etc.

The DPM was quick to add that many other countries offer similar amount of incentives e.g Singapore offers SGD1mil to their gold medallist.

I did a quick check on Google to get some facts for comparison. For some reasons, the Malaysian annoucement came out tops from several searches. Other relevant outcomes as follows:

Thailand offers approximately $300K
Peru offers $50K (and 2 yr scholarship)
Canada offers $20K
(assumed all in USD)

Wiki Answers had the this to say though:

How much do Olympic gold medal winners get paid?
Answer :
They don't. In the US there is no 'reward' for winning a medal. Some countries do award a medal winner some money, but the Olympics don't give money with the medal.