Colombia's Egan Bernal, who at 22 has just become the youngest winner of the Tour de France, received NZ$840,000 out of a prize pool worth about NZ$3.7m.
He will receive a hero's welcome in Colombia and become a figure known by sports fans around the world.
But Esports is sweeping all before it in a much more impressive way. There are predictions it is about to generate revenue in the billions.
The numbers are impressive. Sunday's audience reached two million live streams. The record for concurrent viewers of an Esports competition is five million, set two years ago.
John Yao, the boss of Team Secret, told CNBC that Fortnite was the game changer, although it remained to be seen if it remained dominant in the ever-changing Esports world.
"Fortnite has done something that no other game has - it has pushed Esports into the mainstream," he said.
And the prizemoney backs that up. Giersdorf also won more than Wimbledon champions Novak Djokovic and Simona Halep, who scored NZ$4.37m each, and British Open golf winner Shane Lowry who got NZ$2.87m.
Kiwi cyclist George Bennett earned 1,840 euros ($NZ3,092) in prize money after finishing the Tour de France - NZ$134 a day over 23 stages.
Bennett described his Tour de France as a "bit of a roller coaster" after he helped his Jumbo-Visma team mate Steve Kruijswijk from Holland into third place.
Bennett said the Tokyo Olympics next year was a massive goal for him, and he hoped New Zealand would qualify a few spots rather than being the lone rider as occurred in Rio.
The Tour de France will be held a little earlier next year, because of the Olympics, and he was unsure if it would provide him with the best build up for the Games.
He was left with mixed feelings over this year's tour.
"From a team point of view it was an amazing tour. We won four stages, we were the strongest team in the mountains," he told Radio Sport.
"Personally I got on the bandwagon and enjoyed it but a lot of frustrating moments and situations.
"I was going in to help Stevie…we stuck to the plan. But I managed to crash pretty hard twice in the Alps which was downer.
"I did get the opportunity to show some good legs so personally I got a fair amount out of it as well."
"I should have been sitting second overall going into the rest day but we had a bit of a communication mix up and I was called back to get bottles.
"As I was coming back with bottles for the boys we had a massive cross wind which sent me 10 minutes down. That was the end of me trying to do something personal…it was possible to do the work and hold something for yourself.
"That was frustrating because it was super unnecessary. There's a little bit of bitterness…it was really stupid. Who knows what it would have led to without that?"
