Athletics will turn out to be the primary sport to introduce prize cash on the Olympics this summer time.
World Athletics, the worldwide athletics federation, says it can pay Olympic gold medal winners $50,000 (round £39,400) on the Paris video games.
The athletics governing physique stated it’s setting apart $2.4m (£1.89m) to pay the gold medallists throughout 48 occasions at Paris’ observe and discipline programme.
Staff GB’s Katarina Johnson-Thompson, the world heptathlon champion, might be in line for the fee if she wins gold in Paris. Pic: Reuters
Relay groups will cut up the $50,000 between their members.
Funds for silver and bronze medallists are deliberate to start on the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
World Athletics President Sebastian Coe stated: “The introduction of prize cash for Olympic gold medallists is a pivotal second for World Athletics and the game of athletics as an entire, underscoring our dedication to empowering the athletes and recognising the crucial function they play within the success of any Olympic Video games.
“That is the continuation of a journey we began again in 2015, which sees all the cash World Athletics receives from the Worldwide Olympic Committee for the Olympic Video games go immediately again into our sport.”
He added: “Whereas it’s unattainable to place a marketable worth on profitable an Olympic medal, or on the dedication and focus it takes to even symbolize your nation at an Olympic Video games, I believe it is crucial we begin someplace and ensure among the revenues generated by our athletes on the Olympic Video games are immediately returned to those that make the Video games the worldwide spectacle that it’s.”
World Athletics president Sebastian Coe on the 2023 World Athletics Championships. Pic: Reuters
Chatting with Sky Information, Mr Coe added that he wished athletes “to recognise that I see a really clear correlation between me asserting the brand new companions, the Sony’s, the Deloitte’s, the Morinaga’s that come to the desk and the truth that they can profit from the proceeds of the expansion of the game”.
He additionally stated he doesn’t assume prize cash “remotely” ruins the ethos of the Olympics, saying “relatively than have the athletes as the primary thought and the final consideration, and singing an excellent track about how vital they’re, that must be mirrored”.
“This prize cash I see as a raft of funds that we’re making out there throughout the sport which will truly permit these athletes to stay within the sport for one more 4 years,” he added.
“And look, not everyone goes to win an Olympic title at 100 metres or 1,500 metres, however we have got 48 disciplines, and this may assist the athletes.”
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The fee of prize cash will depend on the World Athletics ratification course of, together with athletes present process and clearing the standard anti-doping procedures.
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The fashionable Olympics originated as an newbie sports activities occasion and the Worldwide Olympic Committee doesn’t award prize cash, although many medallists obtain funds from their international locations’ governments, nationwide sports activities our bodies or from sponsors.
In addition to the varied males’s and girls’s working races – each with and with out hurdles – gold medallists in occasions together with lengthy leap, excessive leap, triple leap, hammer throw, javelin throw, discus throw, pole vault and shot put will obtain the prize cash.
Race strolling, the ladies’s heptathlon and males’s decathlon Olympic winners will even obtain $50,000.
The Worldwide Olympic Committee (IOC) instructed Sky Information: “The IOC redistributes 90% of all its revenue, particularly to the Nationwide Olympic Committees (NOCs) and Worldwide Federations (IFs).
“Because of this, day by day, the equal of $4.2m goes to assist athletes and sports activities organisations in any respect ranges world wide. It’s as much as every IF and NOC to find out how you can finest serve their athletes and the worldwide improvement of their sport.”
