China

Olympic champion Zhou to be paid 1m yuan

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-02-22 15:46

CHANGCHUN: China's newly-crowned Olympic champion Zhou Yang might be paid a minimum of 1 million yuan (about $140,000) of prize money, officials of Changchun municipal government said on Monday.

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Top officials, including the governor of the northeast Chinese city, capital of Jilin Province, which is the hometown of Zhou, paid a visit to the speed skater's parents on Monday morning.

"The bonus for Zhou will be a surprise", said Cui Jie, governor of Changchun city. As Changchun is a northern city, we have advantages in winter games and Zhou's breakthrough encouraged us a lot to turn out more excellent athletes and more Olympic winners."

It is the very first Olympic gold of the individual event for Jilin.Zhou's townee, ping-pong player Wang Hao won a gold medal in the men's team event in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Wang got a prize of one million yuan and officials hinted that the premium for Zhou would be even more.

Zhou had won the gold medal and set an Olympic record in women's 1,500m short track speedskating last Sunday in the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games.