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I've been to a couple of media conferences here now, a basketball one and a swimming one. Pops Mensah-Bonsu, the Great Britain basketball player, recounted how he had grown up behind Tottenham police station and said that he hoped he was a role model for youngsters. He then categorically said that he would pay to take part in the Olympics.

The swimming media conference followed and the three present - Keri-Anne Payne, and Robbie Renwick - also talked of the honour they felt in competing at the Olympics. Payne, specifically, said that she had turned down money-earning opportunities to concentrate on training to help her win gold.

And then was on TV last night saying that here in the UK we are fixated by medals. You and I might think this was a Corinthian call. But, instead, he went on to say that the only medal that matters is gold. Silver, he said, is first loser.

And yet no win bonus for a gold medal? That's when I thought that Jane and I should talk about it.

While Team GB won't pay a win bonus for winning gold, the Germans dosh out £12,436, the Australians £12,906 and we rise up through the other teams in ascending value - the United States, South Korea, Japan, China, France and we end up at the top two Olympic gold prospectors: the Russians at £85,791 and those paragons of tax collection, the Italians at £116,075.

So let's examine this. If anyone out there thinks the athletes who compete for Great Britain are glorious amateurs then they are deluded.

There are various stages of funding depending on the level of support they receive - the base level is £29,000 tax free - and they are able then to get their own sponsorship, within limits, and they also compete for prize money at the tournaments they go to around the world. Ironically, they take part in those events to get ranking points so that they can be selected to compete at the Olympics.

So, somehow, it's okay to be paid to train thanks to taxpayers' money and it's okay to be paid to compete at events around the world, but it's not acceptable in the UK to be paid to win an Olympic gold medal?

Lots of athletes will say they don't want, or need, to be paid to compete at the Olympics. Which misses the point that they already are. And the fact that a gold medal comes with its future promise of financial reward as a direct result of winning that gold medal.

Perhaps that's enough?

Most management studies into the role of money in the workplace examine the unique ability of cash to make people unhappy. Money makes you jealous, but if you have no money and you need to eat then money comes in very handy. And most established sports, like football, rugby (both codes), professional basketball, cricket and a host of others, offer win bonuses.

I know that motivation in sport is very complicated. But, despite its car-crash effect in the world of high finance, where top businessmen, it seems to me, are given millions for managing companies as successfully as I might, money seems to talk.

Would giving Team GB athletes a win bonus for gold medals affect the final medal table and shift the emphasis, as Redgrave wants, from winning a medal to focussing on gold? I wonder.

And is it right to offer money to win a gold medal in the first place?

Right, off to prepare for the opening ceremony. When they called for "JB", I completely misunderstood. , now there is a man who had his eye on gold.

How exactly do you fly a helicopter?