There will be even more incentive than a gold medal for track and field athletes at the 2024 Paris Olympics. On Wednesday, World Athletics, the governing body for track and field events, announced that they have created a prize fund of $2.4 million that will be used to hand out $50,000 to the gold medalists in each of the 48 track and field events at the 2024 Olympics.
This is the first time that prize money will be awarded to Olympic athletes by a governing body.
"While it is impossible to put a marketable value on winning an Olympic medal, or on the commitment and focus it takes to even represent your country at an Olympic Games, I think it is important we start somewhere and make sure some of the revenues generated by our athletes at the Olympic Games are directly returned to those who make the Games the global spectacle that it is," World Athletics president Sebastian Coe said in a statement on Wednesday.
Multiple countries and Olympic committees have previously offered payments to athletes that earn medals. The United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee awarded $37,500 to gold medalists in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, according to a report from the Associated Press.
Only gold medalists will be entitled to receive prize money in the Paris Olympics, but World Athletics has stated that they have a "firm commitment" to offer prize money to silver and bronze medalists in the 2028 Olympics.
That particular prize pot will be taken from revenue-sharing funds that World Athletics obtains from the International Olympic Committee. When it comes to the payout structure, individual track and field competitors will earn $50,000, while relay events will split the prize money.
The 2024 Paris Olympics will begin on July 26 and run through August 11.
