MONACO, APRIL 10— World Athletics has announced that it will be the first international sports federation to pay prize money to medalists at the Olympic Games. In Paris this summer, the payout from a “ring fenced” portion of the moneys received from IOC broadcast revenue sharing will be $50,000 to each gold medalist and gold medal relay team. With 48 track & field events on the Olympic program, the allocation — separate from much larger numbers spent on WA’s own championships and development projects worldwide — will total $2.4 million.
WA President Seb Coe, on a conference call with media, added, “What I’m committing to today is to extend that in Los Angeles in ’28 to gold, silver and bronze” — at percentages commensurate with the color of the medals.
Said Coe, “20% of all competitors, as you’ll see in Paris in a few weeks’ time, are from the sport of track & field. And I always committed to doing what I could to the next iteration of that journey, which is to create a better and more financially viable sport for the athletes themselves. We are, of course, in a very different financial model when it comes to the Olympic movement. 95% of our income is actually derived from our World Championships and our ability to leverage off the back of those.
“But I also wanted to recognize that the athletes play a crucial role in attracting the billions of people that watch an Olympic Games. So we wanted to start somewhere. Today is that starting point. And I think that sits firmly within the principles and philosophy that we’ve set ourselves, that we wanted to improve the financial viability of the sport for our competitors.”
Coe rejects any sentimental traditionalist arguments that prize money sullies the Olympic spirit any more than it does a World Championships. With all that money flowing in rivers to commercial entities in the Olympic ecosystem around each Games? Come on. Much has changed in the world and the sport since Coe won his second 1500 gold medal 40 years ago at the LA ’84 Games — not least with respect to track’s evolution to open professionalism.
“When I started out in the British team,” Coe said, “it was a 75-pence meal voucher, second-class rail ticket or 10p-per-mile petrol [allowance] or whatever was cheaper. So, you know, I’ve always been committed where I possibly can or could to just making life a little bit easier for the athletes.”
The WA President acknowledged that $50K for a gold medal is only a starting place, and will represent just a sliver of support received by track & field Olympians.
“I don’t think it’s possible to financially put a monetary value on an Olympic title,” Coe said. “You know, off the back of that, athletes will receive financial support sometimes from government, sometimes from national Olympic committees, maybe even from their own federation or a commercial range of partners… This wasn’t to overshadow those efforts…”
Even for the most elite pro tracksters, those who earn millions per season, the greatest well of financial support has come earlier in a career. Said, Coe, “I understand the pressures that they’re under now. The world has dramatically changed. If you amortized over the course of the average athlete’s career, even the top athletes, I think you would find… that the single biggest contributor over the career of an athlete will be friends, family, local communities, and modest contributions at a local level to get careers kickstarted.
“And remember, an athlete will often have been out there in dedicated training relying on the largesse of family and friends for the best part of a decade before they make it to the public visibility that a podium finish gives them.”
In the U.S., there is also massive expenditure in the aggregate by the collegiate system and high schools, and boosting countless (though, rest easy, more than one stat nerd has the numbers) elite not-U.S-athletes. But not to any dilution of Coe’s point.
The cash for Olympic golds initiative, the WA President concluded, “is our way of just reflecting modestly that we understand what this process is about and to help improve that financial viability.”
