Paralympians were not going to receive any medal incentive funding in Tokyo, before the federal government announced on Thursday it would match what Olympic medallists were paid by the AOC - $20,000 for a gold medal, $15,000 for silver and $10,000 for bronze.

After securing his seventh Paralympic medal, a bronze in the T38 100m sprint in Tokyo, O'Hanlon said it was great the government had put up the money but Paralympics Australia would need more sponsorship to fund it themselves long term.

"It really legitimises the performances of Paralympians in the eyes of the Australian public, because if the government is prepared to step up and shell out that money. The Australian government's got to realise that we're putting in just as much work as the Olympians," he said.

"For me to win a medal and be able to get a top up on my wage or my yearly income is really good because I had to move away from Australia to the Czech Republic so that I could continue doing my sport, because I didn't earn enough money."

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O'Hanlon earns about $40,000 a year from Athletics Australia and government funding, as a bronze medalist, which is based on his ability to win a medal at the next world event.

He said in a lot of ways government funding for national sporting organisations relied on athletes winning medals.

"When you go to a world championships, and you win a medal, you're ensuring the job of not just yourself for the next cycle or the next six months or the next year, but you're also ensuring a lot of other people's jobs. Because there just won't to be funding in that sport," he said.

"People see us on TV doing amazingly, looking good on TV and speaking well in interviews and probably think that it all comes relatively easy and that we are looked after, but it is a struggle for most athletes.

"If I was a gold medalist it would be $50,000 a year. Whilst that is amazing and great to be paid to be an athlete you can not live in many places in Australia for $50,000 a year, particularly if you're like me and have two kids, so I moved overseas so that I could use that money to look after my family."

As he sets his sights on the bobsled event at the Beijing winter Olympics next year - which would see him become the first person with cerebral palsy to do so - he knows how important funding is for a sport's success.

He forked out $40,000 to purchase two new sleds this year, and said the cost to compete in bobsled came mostly out of his own pocket, as the Australian Bobsleigh Federation did the best job it could with the little funding it received.

"In terms of bobsled, my funding is very, very minimal. Funding is not huge for athletics but my funding for bobsled is like two per cent of that," O'Hanlon said.

"It really does hamstring the sport a lot ... because Australia has all the things to be successful at bobsled. We have the right athletes, we have rugby union, rugby league and AFL guys that are built big, strong and fast, that's what you need.

"We have the technology as well. So we have the athletes, we have the technology. We just don't have the money to put that those two things together. If we did, Australia could be really successful in bobsled."