Financial fortunes of legendary sprinter Usain Bolt have grown with his heightened status since the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the sprint king is now ranked 40th on Forbes Magazine’s Highest-Paid Athletes list with US$24.2 million (J$2.4 billion) in earnings last year.
Bolt’s rank is 23 places higher than 2012 but more impressively his income is almost US$4 million more than the previous year.
According to the magazine, the majority of the six-time Olympic champion’s earnings came from lucrative sponsorship deals with Puma, Samsung and local telecoms giant Digicel among others.
The Forbes list is however dominated by athletes from sports with greater sponsorship appeal such as American football, soccer, baseball and basketball.
Golfer Tiger Woods with US$78.1 million returns to the top spot which he has held since 2001, before losing to boxer Floyd Mayweather last year. Mayweather is now ranked 14th.
Tennis star Roger Federer is second (US$71.5m), Kobe Bryant third (US$61.9m), LeBron James fourth (US$59.8m) and Drew Brees (US$51m) completes the top five. Brees plays football for the New Orleans Saints.