Track and field athletes who win a gold medal at the Summer Olympics in Paris will now receive prize money for their Olympic accomplishments, making it the first sport to offer prize money at the Olympics.
World Athletics announced in a press release that it intends to pay $50,000 to each individual gold medallist, while relay teams will split the award between the four members. The organization has set aside $2.4 million to account for the 48 track and field events at the upcoming Games.
Prize money for silver and bronze medallists is scheduled to be introduced at the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028.
The funds for the prizes will come out of the share of Olympic revenue that the International Olympic Committee distributes to World Athletics; it is up to each sport’s governing body to decide how to spend their share of the Olympic revenue.
World Athletics President Sebastian Coe stated in the press release: “It is important we start somewhere and make sure some of the revenues generated by our athletes at the Olympic Games are directly returned to those who make the Games the global spectacle that it is.”
Some Olympic athletes receive payments from their nations’ government, but the IOC has no sport-wide standard for offering prize money. Other sport organizations, such as World Aquatics, provide compensation for medallists at their own competitions including world championships.
World Aquatics shared that it does not plan to match World Athletics in offering prize money to Olympic medallists, instead focusing on increasing the amount of prize money offered at World Championships. The World Athletics Championship currently offers more in prize money than the World Aquatics Championship, paying $70,000 to gold medallists in comparison to the World Aquatics’ $20,000.
The move to offer Olympic prize money marks a shift away from the historically amateur nature of the Olympics, which traditionally has not offered prize money to medallists. Despite being the world’s biggest athletic stage, it is one of the only competitions where many professional athletes will compete for free.
It is unclear as of yet whether other sports will eventually follow World Athletics in offering prize money to their Olympic medallists.
This is great! Olympians are underpaid knowing that the Olympics involves billions of dollars.
Hopefully swimming is next.
I agree with some who say ‘Olympic Games’ don’t need prize-money and World Aths should’ve added those dollars to prize-money in their own events (especially World Juniors I would say, to promote growth) rather than an IOC event.
But I also agree with the thought that Track & Field IS the #1 sport at the Olympics and they now have bragging rights over every other single sport.
What are the odds we see track and field and/or swim stars form a union and collectively bargain with World Athletics/World Aquatics/the IOC for a set percentage of their revenues to be returned to the athletes?
Fantastic!
World Aquatics, your move now!
How much money do these world governing bodies get from the IOC? What percent is returned to athletes in any form?