Is there prize money at the Commonwealth Games?

About 3,000 athletes have descended on Scotland's largest city for the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

A smaller-scale event than when the city hosted the Games in 2014, it will still see 74 nations competing in 10 different sports.

With the long-term future of the event in question and several big names withdrawing from competing - what is the incentive for athletes to take part?

In short, no. There is no prize money available for athletes for either taking part or winning medals at the Commonwealth Games.

This is not unusual for multi-sport events, as even the Olympic Games only recently saw the introduction of prize money for the highest-profile sports - and even then this was allocated by sporting governing bodies and not the International Olympic Committee (IOC) themselves.

At both the summer and Winter Olympics, some nations may choose to reward their athletes for winning medals as well as funding their training and participation.

A similar system is in place for the Commonwealth Games.

It is down to each individual nation to fund and support their athletes - so in the case of British teams, Sport Scotland, Sport England, Sport Wales and Sport Northern Ireland will each be responsible for the training and financing of those competing.

Members of Team GB taking part in the Olympics may receive an APA (Athlete Personal Award) from UK Sport, funded by the National Lottery.

However, it works slightly differently with the Commonwealth Games as the home nations compete separately instead of under the Team GB umbrella.

As an example, Sport Scotland gave BBC Sport a breakdown of how the 177 Team Scotland athletes have been funded for Glasgow 2026.

Of the 177 individuals:

Remaining athletes may be amateurs who are self-funding their training and participation alongside other careers.

Sport Scotland also provides investment into each Scottish governing body for all 10 Glasgow 2026 sports, to help them provide training and competition programmes for their top athletes to allow them to qualify and prepare for the Games.

So with no particular financial incentive to take part, could many Commonwealth athletes see the Games as a springboard to improving their ranking in their discipline - and potentially earn them a place at the Olympics?

That very much depends on the sport.

While there is no way to earn direct entry to the Olympics via the Commonwealth Games, some disciplines will take performances into account for world rankings - which could in turn help an athlete be selected by their home nation for other events.

There are a few reasons why some governing bodies do not take Commonwealth performance into account.

For example, the restricted nature of the nations eligible to take part mean it is not seen as a fair playing field for athletes globally to improve their stance.

Some organisations such as cycling's UCI class the Games as 'regional' events and therefore do not view them as meeting the criteria for global ranking points to be applied.

But even without the chance of an improved world ranking, a strong performance at the Commonwealth Games could raise an athlete's profile enough to bring in more lucrative brand and sponsorship deals.

BBC Sport asked each governing body taking part in Glasgow 2026 if Games performance would have an influence on individual or team world rankings.

The organisations that said Commonwealth performance would affect rankings were:

Those that said the Commonwealth Games would not influence rankings were:

We did not get a response from the International Judo Federation (IJF) or International Weightlifting Federation (IWF).

This article is the latest from BBC Sport's Ask Me Anything team.