[
For the primary time within the Olympics, gold medal winners on the Paris 2024 Video games will receives a commission to play.
Monitor and subject will grow to be the primary sport to introduce prize cash on the Olympics, with World Athletics saying it is going to pay $50,000 to gold medal winners in Paris.
The transfer, introduced on Wednesday, is a symbolic break with the Olympics' beginner previous as one of many sport's most watched occasions.
Athletics' governing physique stated it’s setting apart $2.4 million to pay gold medalists in 48 males's, ladies's and blended occasions within the observe and subject program for this 12 months's Paris Olympics. Relay groups will break up the $50,000 amongst their members. Funds for silver and bronze medal winners are deliberate to start on the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
World Athletics president Sebastian Coe advised reporters the transfer was meant to “acknowledge that the income share we get is largely as a result of our athletes are the celebrities of the present”.
Prize cash will come out of the portion of Olympic income that the Worldwide Olympic Committee (IOC) distributes to World Athletics.
Nevertheless, the transfer may upset the stability of energy within the Olympic motion forward of the Paris Video games. Coe stated World Athletics had “warned” the IOC of its intentions on Wednesday morning, shortly earlier than publishing its announcement.
In response, the IOC stated it was as much as every sport's governing physique to resolve easy methods to spend its share of Olympic revenues.
“The IOC redistributes 90% of all its revenue, solely to Nationwide Olympic Committees (NOCs) and Worldwide Federations (IFs),” the IOC stated in a press release. “Which means, daily, the equal of $4.2 million goes to assist athletes and sports activities organizations in any respect ranges around the globe. It’s as much as every IF and NOC to resolve easy methods to finest serve their athletes and the worldwide improvement of their sport.
The trendy Olympics started as an beginner sporting occasion, and the IOC doesn’t award prize cash. Nevertheless, many medal winners obtain fee from their nation's governments, nationwide sports activities our bodies or sponsors.
America Olympic and Paralympic Committee awarded $37,500 to gold medalists on the final Summer season Video games in Tokyo in 2021. The Nationwide Olympic Council of Singapore has pledged $1 million for Olympic gold, a feat achieved solely as soon as earlier than by a Singaporean competitor.
In sports activities akin to tennis and golf, the Olympic match is the one time in a season when a number of skilled gamers compete free of charge, providing medals however no prize cash. Coe didn’t need to speculate on whether or not different occasions may comply with observe and subject's lead.
“I’ve all the time made some extent of not talking on behalf of different sports activities,” Coe stated.
There is no such thing as a signal of prize cash being supplied in some other Olympic sport but.