Track & field to be 1st sport to introduce Olympic prize money, with $50K US for gold-medal win

Monitor and subject is about to change into the primary sport to introduce prize cash on the Olympics, with World Athletics saying Wednesday it might pay $50,000 US to gold medallists in Paris.

The transfer is a symbolic break with the novice previous of the Olympics in one of many video games’ most-watched occasions.

The governing physique of athletics stated it was setting apart $2.4 million to pay the gold medallists throughout the 48 occasions on the monitor and subject program for this yr’s Paris Olympics. Relay groups will break up the $50,000 between their members. Funds for silver and bronze medallists are deliberate to begin from the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.

Canadian monitor and subject medal winners will obtain this prize cash along with the $20,000 for profitable gold, $15,000 for silver, and $10,000 for bronze awarded by way of the Canadian Olympic Committee Athlete Excellence Fund.

World Athletics president Sebastian Coe instructed reporters that the transfer is supposed “to acknowledge that the income share that we obtain is largely as a result of our athletes are the celebrities of the present.”

The prize cash will come out of the share of Olympic income the Worldwide Olympic Committee distributes to World Athletics.

Nonetheless, the transfer may upset the stability of energy within the Olympic motion forward of the Paris Video games. Coe stated World Athletics solely gave the Worldwide Olympic Committee “a heads-up” of its intentions on Wednesday morning, shortly earlier than it printed its announcement. The IOC didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon the World Athletics plan.

Nonetheless, the transfer may upset the stability of energy within the Olympic motion forward of the Paris Video games. Coe stated World Athletics solely gave the Worldwide Olympic Committee “a heads-up” of its intentions on Wednesday morning, shortly earlier than it printed its announcement.

Medallists obtain cost from many sources

In response, the IOC stated it was as much as every sport’s governing physique to determine learn how to spend its share of Olympic income.

“The IOC redistributes 90 per cent of all its revenue, specifically to the Nationwide Olympic Committees [NOCs] and Worldwide Federations [IFs],” the IOC stated. “Which means, day by day, the equal of $4.2 million goes to assist athletes and sports activities organizations in any respect ranges world wide. It’s as much as every IF and NOC to find out learn how to finest serve their athletes and the worldwide improvement of their sport.”

The fashionable Olympics originated as an novice sports activities occasion and the IOC doesn’t award prize cash. Nonetheless, many medallists obtain funds from their international locations’ governments, nationwide sports activities our bodies or from sponsors.

“I am in all probability the final technology to have been on the 75-pence [95-cent] meal voucher and second-class rail fare, competing for my very own nation. So imagine me, I do perceive the character of the transition we have been in,” Coe stated.

The British runner gained gold within the 1,500 metres on the 1980 and 1984 Video games in an period when Olympic monitor was on the verge of opening as much as skilled athletes.

“It is a fully totally different planet from after I was competing, so it is essential that this sport acknowledges the change in that panorama and the added pressures on many opponents.”

The US Olympic and Paralympic Committee awarded $37,500 to gold medallists on the final Summer time Video games in Tokyo in 2021. Singapore’s Nationwide Olympic Council guarantees $1 million for Olympic gold, a feat solely achieved as soon as to date by a Singaporean competitor.

In sports activities like tennis and golf, the Olympic match is the one time in a season that many professional gamers compete totally free, with medals on supply however no prize cash. However Coe did not wish to speculate on whether or not different occasions may comply with monitor and subject’s lead.

“I’ve at all times made it some extent to not converse on behalf of different sports activities,” Coe stated.

Presidential bid by Coe potential

The transfer by World Athletics might be seen as an indicator of Coe’s intentions for the Olympics as a complete if he makes a run for the IOC presidency.

“I have not dominated it in, and I actually have not dominated it out,” Coe stated final yr when requested whether or not he would contemplate working for the IOC’s prime put up when Thomas Bach’s time period ends in 2025. The IOC sometimes disapproves of any public campaigning for the presidency.

Olympic gold medallists will nonetheless earn much less prize cash than they might at World Athletics’ personal world championships. Final yr’s version in Budapest paid out prize cash right down to eighth place with $70,000 on supply for particular person gold medallists.

Athletes should cross “the standard anti-doping procedures” on the Olympics earlier than they obtain the brand new prize cash, World Athletics added.