FOR the first time in Olympic Games history, gold medallists in athletics will be rewarded with cash prizes.
Athletics will become the first sport to offer prize money to Olympic champions, as the sport’s governing body announced today that the 48 gold medallists in Paris this year will earn $50,000 each.
Silver and bronze medallists will also earn prize money, but not at this year’s edition, instead from the 2028 Los Angeles Games.
“This is the continuation of a journey we started back in 2015, which sees all the money World Athletics receives from the International Olympic Committee for the Olympic Games go directly back into our sport,” World Athletics President Sebastian Coe said in a statement after announcing the $2.4 million prize pot for the Paris 2024 Games.
“While it is impossible to put a marketable value on winning an Olympic medal … I think it is important we 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.”
According to the arrangement, relay teams will share the winners’ prize pot.
Athletics is usually the Olympics’ most popular sport, especially the short distance races, which have produced legends like Cathy Freeman, Carl Lewis and Usain Bolt.
The sport leads others in number of participants and TV audiences but most of the athletes, including many Olympic medallists, usually struggle to secure funding.
Nigeria’s only credible prospects for track and field gold medals in Paris this July and August are women’s 100m hurdles world record holder Tobi Amusan and Ese Brume, who won bronze in women’s long jump at the last Olympics in Tokyo three years ago.
