Athletics will award money to Olympic champions in Paris 2024

After 128 years, World Athletics has decided to change the rules and symbols surrounding Olympism. The international body, which governs athletics, announced that it will be the first to award an economic reward to athletes who win a gold medal in Paris 2024.

For this initiative, the entity that presides over British Sebastian Coe will allocate 2.4 million dollars from the income allocation of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that it receives every four years. That amount will be used to reward $50,000 to athletes who win a gold medal in each of the 48 athletics events in Paris 2024.

Sharing the details of the decision, Sebastian Coe commented: “The introduction of prize money for Olympic champions comes at a crucial time for athletics as a whole, underlining our commitment to empowering athletes and recognizing the fundamental role they play in the success of any Olympic Game.”

Coe, the middle distance legend for his successes on the track, after retiring demonstrated a perfect conversion to the offices. Since 2015, at the helm of World Athletics, he has completed a third term and the balance sheet leaves profound changes in the governing institution of one of the parent sports: “This is the continuation of a journey that began in 2015, which sees that all the money that world athletics receives from the International Olympic Committee returns directly to our sport,” said Coe, who is known to have aspirations to preside over the IOC.

It should be remembered that this is the first time that a body that manages a discipline has announced an extra payment to athletes who in this case are going to win the gold medal in the Olympic Games, but it is common for National Olympic Committees to pay their athletes a sum of money in reward for being medalists.

The World Athletics initiative aims to expand to all medalists, that is, to include silver and bronze medalists, for Los Angeles 2028: “While it is impossible to put a monetary value on the symbolic value of winning an Olympic medal, I think it’s important that we start somewhere and make sure that some of the income generated by our athletes in the Olympic Games is returned directly to those who make the Games the global spectacle that they are,” concluded Coe.