Susan Egelstaff on Sunday
Olympic prize money is the right move at the right time by World Athletics
CONSIDERING the astronomical sums of money involved in top-level sport these days, it’s quaint to consider that so many of the world’s top athletes spend their lives striving for something that won’t earn them a penny.
Not directly, anyway.
There are already many by-products of becoming Olympic champion. There’s the fulfilment of, in most cases, a life-long dream; the rise in profile and satisfaction of proving yourself to be the best on the planet on the one day that matters more than any other in sport.
But never has one of the by-products ever been remuneration.
Which is why last week was so significant with the introduction of Olympic prize money.
To date, the entire ethos of the Games has been based on amateurism, meaning that not a penny has ever been directly awarded to athletes for medalwinning performances.
However, from this summer, this will change, with World Athletics announcing they will become the first federation to award prize money at the Olympics. A prize pot of $2.4 million (£1.9m) will be on offer, meaning track and field athletes who win gold will walk away with a cool $50,000.
In Paris, it will be only the victors who will receive prize money, but the plan is to extend this to silver and bronze medallists in 2028.
This an interesting development, and comes at an interesting time.
The Olympics, since their inception nearly 130 years ago, has been billed as an amateur competition, with professionals banned from even competing until relatively recently.
But everyone knows that today the Games are one of the most professionalised strands of elite sport and so the absence of financial reward has looked incongruous for quite some time. And so the move by World Athletics, although out of the blue, is the right thing to do.
As World Athletics’ president Seb
Coe rightly said in announcing this development, the athletes are the stars of the show and so they should be recognised as such.
But for decades, in many quarters, the athletes have not been treated as such. Without them, the Olympics are nothing, but it’s the athletes who are far down the queue when it comes to being rewarded or even acknowledged for the vital part they play.
The money the Olympic Games bring in is eye-watering; between 2017 and 2021, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) made $7.6 billion in revenue from broadcasting rights, marketing rights and other avenues. So many people are made rich by the Olympics, but it’s not the athletes.
Sportsmen and women sacrifice so much to ensure they excel on the
Olympic stage and while they are able to make money from individual sponsorship deals, it seems hard to justify the absence of prize money when it’s the athletes who are central to generating billions.
The suggestion that the introduction of prize money will dilute or devalue the Olympics is fanciful.
Ensuring athletes are rewarded financially for making the Olympics what it is will not, as I heard suggested, “violate the Olympic spirit”. Prize money or not, an Olympic gold medal is, and will remain, the pinnacle of most athletes’ careers and a few dollars will do nothing to diminish the prestige.
Instead, it’s just recognising, in a small way, the role the athletes have played in making the Olympics the juggernaut they are today.
What’s perhaps more interesting than the decision of World Athletics to introduce prize money, which is almost universally accepted as a good idea, is why now?
For decades, athletes have dedicated their lives to their pursuit of a gold medal and the continuing absence of prize money wouldn’t have done anything to dampen the desire to become Olympic champion.
There has, however, in recent years become an increasing push from people who are trying to change the status quo of sport.
By that, I mean that the Olympic Games, outwith football, rugby and perhaps golf and tennis, has, to date, been the apex, with everything else distinctly subservient.
But the Saudi insertion into global sport, plus the Enhanced Games, which would allow athletes to compete aided by performanceenhancing drugs, are upsetting the accepted sporting hierarchy with their refusal to accept the way it has always been.
While the Olympics remain the pinnacle of sport, the more challenges there are, the more chance there is the best athletes could be tempted to go in a different direction.
The introduction of prize money then, is a smart move; by adding this extra layer of financial reward to the already worshipped Olympic gold medal, they are both giving their athletes a monetary reward which will be warmly welcomed by individuals who will often be far from millionaires, and are highlighting their appreciation for the value athletes bring.
But for all the plaudits World Athletics received last week, don’t expect every federation to rush to follow suit.
First, few have millions of dollars at their disposal. And second, in all too many cases, athletes are still not recognised as the irreplaceable commodities they indisputably are.
For all the plaudits World Athletics received last week, don’t expect every federation to rush to follow suit