Survey finds elite athletes struggling financially

The comments could easily have come from any middle-class town where workers have trouble making ends meet: “No pension plan, no chance of structural income over a longer period of time.” “I will not have savings until the mortgage of my house is paid off.” “My parents still have to help me pay for my food.”

In this case, however, the tales of financial struggle come from some of the best athletes in the world.

In a survey of nearly 500 elite athletes across 48 countries, many of them gearing up for the Olympics this year, an athletes’ rights group found that 58% said they did not consider themselves financially stable.

Even greater majorities said they did not receive “the appropriate amount of financial compensation” from the International Olympic Committee or the national federations that send them to the Games and other major events.

And 57% answered “Yes” when asked if the IOC should pay athletes to attend its events.

Over the last year, the advocacy group Global Athlete received responses from 491 athletes across six continents, about 200 of whom identified themselves as Olympians or Paralympians, and the rest of whom compete at an elite level in their country or at an international level. The responses painted one of the most thorough pictures of the long-documented reality of competing at the highest levels of Olympic sports: Hardly anyone gets rich, while the majority are poor and largely beholden to the