On Wednesday, April 10, World Athletics has announced that track and field will be the first Olympic sport to pay gold medalists. The organization said that it will award gold medalists $50,000 each, starting with the Paris Games in 2024.
This makes World Athletics the first international federation to offer prize money directly to Olympic medalists as the games continue to shift away from amateurism.
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The track and field pot of earnings will be $2.4 million for 48 men’s and women’s events. The federation said this is the first step in its plan to eventually pay all medalists by 2028, the year of the Los Angeles Games.
The funds for the winnings comes from payments to World Athletics from the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The IOC rakes in billions of dollars from sponsorships and broadcast deals.
The IOC said it was up to each sport’s governing body on how to spend its share of the Olympic revenue. However, it said it was not made aware of the World Athletics decision until April 10, shortly before the announcement.
Some countries already give athletes bonuses for medaling. The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee awards athletes $37,500 for gold medals, $22,500 for silver medals and $15,000 for bronze medals. Singapore reportedly gives gold medalists $1 million. The U.K. and New Zealand offer no prize money for athletes at all.
However, athletes pay thousands of dollars each year for coaching and travel events and sacrifice traditional careers in the process.
World Athletics said that its latest move is a “commitment to empowering the athletes and recognizing the critical role they play in the success of the Olympic Games.”
