SAVE your money and don’t spend unnecessarily was the message from Tun Jeanne Abdullah yesterday to the Malaysian paralympic athletes who won medals at the Incheon Asian Para Games last month.
Tun Jeanne, who is the patron of the Malaysian Paralympic Council, admitted that she was slightly worried as some of the athletes have not seen huge amounts of cash before.
“I’m really thankful to our sports minister (Khairy Jamaluddin) for announcing that the incentives for the paralympic athletes will be the same as the able bodied athletes.
“My only concern is that some of these athletes have not received such huge amounts before. I hope that they will not spend it unnecessarily and save it for good use,” said Tun Jeanne after the appreciation event at the Marina in Putrajaya. She was accompanied by her husband Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.
The incentive for a gold medal is RM80,000, followed by RM40,000 for silver and RM20,000 for a bronze. The incentives, however, will only be presented to the para athletes along with the Incheon Asian Games able bodied athletes at a later date.
The Asian Para Games athletes also received rewards from Tune Talk at the event yesterday for their 15 gold, 20 silver and 27 bronze medal haul this year, which exceeded the nine gold target.
Gold medal winners received RM1,000 for each medal, followed by RM700 for silver and RM500 for bronze. By Fabian Peter