It’s Fort Knox, Georgia

Olympic champions’ medals aren’t worth their weight in gold. They’re worth more. For some Olympians, the years of training have paid off.

The U.S. Olympic Committee gives $15,000 for gold, $12,500 for silver, $10,000 for bronze, $7,500 for fourth place.

Multiple-medal athletes receive the top medal amount only once.

In addition to the single USOC medal bonuses, some federations provide their own bonuses; U.S. Swimming, for example, pays gold medalists $50,000.

Amy Van Dyken’s four gold medals top the money charts with $127,500, based on information provided by the USOC and U.S. Swimming. For her 50-meter freestyle gold, she earned $15,000 from the USOC and $50,000 from the USS. For the 100 butterfly, she bagged another $50,000. The remaining $12,500 comes from her portion of the federation’s gold medal bonus for two relays.

Swimming’s silver medalists get up to $25,000 and bronze winners up to $10,000. Even relay swimmers who compete only in prelims get a bonus.

The gymnastics federation helps organize a performance tour, where the gymnasts can up to earn $3,500 in appearance money for each of at least 30 different stops. Shannon Miller could make a minimum of $105,000.

Focus on games

The leader of the Olympic movement added his voice Sunday to an underlying criticism of the Centennial Games: commercialism got out of hand in Atlanta.

IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch stopped short of calling the games “the best ever” and said steps will be taken to ensure that problems in Atlanta will not be repeated at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.

In his speech at Sunday night’s closing ceremony, Samaranch said the games “have indeed been most exceptional.”

But Samaranch took aim at the carnival-like merchandising that occurred outside the control of the International Olympic Committee and the Atlanta organizing committee.

“Sport must be directed by sport itself, not by commercialization as was the case in Atlanta,” he told a news conference on the final day of the games.

Samaranch said the Olympics needs commercialization to survive but stressed that it must be controlled and directed by the Olympic movement.

“This commercialization must not run the games,” he said. “The games must be run by the IOC.”

Bag this

Leaving is such sweet sorrow. Just ask the luggage checkers at the Delta Air Lines counter at Hartsfield International Airport.

“How many pieces?” a checker asked.

“Forty-seven,” replied British cycling coach Doug Dailey.

“Just 43 over our limit,” one of his colleagues offered.

They rolled into the airport with three dollies full of bagged bicycles, wheels and extra equipment, and an Olympic crowd at their heels.

“It’s bound to be a little hectic,” Dailey said. “Never known an Olympics that wasn’t.”

Hartsfield officials estimated that 237,000 passengers swarmed the airport on Sunday - more than the 212,000 in the last non-Olympic traveling monsoon, the Sunday after Thanksgiving 1995.

Monday’s crowd is expected to be even bigger: 253,000 people, a record for one of the world’s busiest airports.

Blown away by it all

Even though the air conditioner blew her ribbon away, the Ukraine’s Yekaterina Serebryanskaya knew it couldn’t take the gold medal, too.

Serebryanskaya’s scores in the first three routines were high enough to give her the gold in the Olympic rhythmic gymnastics individual all-around Sunday, even with the mistake in her final exercise.

On her final routine, Serebryanskaya blew a catch of her ribbon. “Due to the air conditioning, it moved away from me,” she said.