World Athletics has caused an Olympic-size stir by promising to pay prize money to medalists at the Olympic Games. Track and Field’s governing body will pay gold medalists $50,000 at the upcoming Paris Olympics and will add payments for silver and bronze medalists at the 2028 Los Angeles Games.
Why has this provoked reactions in the sports world? Well, because it’s the governing body of the sport that is making payments at an event that still at times pretends it is the purest of athletic contests. The Olympic Games were famously amateur for most of the 20th century, but amateur sports are for hobbyists nowadays. If you’re an Olympian, you’re basically a professional.
In the 21st century, Olympic athletes get paid – not usually to appear, but to perform. An Olympic gold medal is a pretty sure way of getting rich. Some countries offer hundreds of thousands of dollars for medals. Japan offers $45,000 for a gold medal.
Even the Communist countries of old would compensate their athletes, who they regarded as an extension of the state and a tool of soft power. Usually, payment came in the form of a nice house or apartment, and maybe a car and an easy job upon retirement. A gold medal not only carried financial rewards for the athlete, but it had political and prestige power for the country. The Communists selected, trained and drugged their athletes from a young age to try and achieve superiority over the decadent West. And it worked, at least until the sports star had an opportunity to defect to the West to make some real money.
The question is: What will World Athletics get for its money? Will $50,000 make any athlete run faster, throw harder or jump higher? Well, possibly, but again, how will that benefit World Athletics? They will always have a gold medalist, whether or not they pay him/ her a cash reward.
Athletes usually need money when they are developing, i.e., before they get to the Olympic standard. So World Athletics could be depriving poorer athletes of reaching their full potential. One theory of sports goes that the greatest competition is always found below; raise that level and all athletes improve. An example of this can be found in golf. Tiger Woods was head and shoulders above his contemporaries at his peak, but his success forced those contemporaries and those who came later to up their game, to reach new levels of skill and athleticism and the sport was transformed as a result. Money wasn’t the motivating factor; Tiger just set a new benchmark for a professional golfer.
The argument could be made that competitors compete because they are competitors, because they are winners, or at least trying to be. Soccer fans become incensed when they think that a player in one of the top men’s leagues in Europe is not pulling his weight. Many fans believe that players are vastly overpaid for kicking a ball around and lack of effort is guaranteed to make a fan’s blood boil (not to mention that of teammates).
Some of the richest professional athletes in the world now compete in the Olympics: soccer players, golfers, tennis players, runners, baseball players. In the old days, only amateurs would compete, because only the purity of the sport mattered (OK, unless you were a Nazi or a Communist). The sport still matters, but any athlete worth his place in the Games will have a whole bunch of money riding on their success in that sport. And, of course, the rich get richer, and the richer win more medals.
Athletes in the past would have a day job and train early in the morning and at night. Money from sponsorships, broadcasting rights and cash awards from sports federations now give some athletes a huge advantage as they can dedicate themselves to their sport on a full-time basis. Perhaps World Athletics is trying to reward some athletes for their dedication, post facto.
“The introduction of prize money for Olympic gold medalists is a pivotal commitment to empowering the athletes and recognizing the critical role they play in the success of any Olympic Games,” World Athletics President Sebastian Coe said in a statement.
In Coe’s defense, his organization is at least recompensing their athletes for their efforts. Not all sports organizations are as generous. According to an AP report, 58 percent of athletes in a survey covering 48 countries said they did not consider themselves financially stable and 57 percent said the International Olympic Committee should pay athletes who appear at the Games.
IOC boss Thomas Bach said World Athletics “should focus its funding on supporting athletes at the other end of the spectrum.” He might also have pointed out that the most famous runner of this century, Usain Bolt, was reportedly earning $30 million a year on the back of his Olympic success. He may not have laughed at Coe’s $50,000, but he probably wouldn’t have noticed it.
But for the athlete, training in poverty is no laughing matter.
On your mark, get set, gold: World Athletics stirs Olympic pot with prize money
78
0
10.05.2024
World Athletics has caused an Olympic-size stir by promising to pay prize money to medalists at the Olympic Games. Track and Field’s governing body will pay gold medalists $50,000 at the upcoming Paris Olympics and will add payments for silver and bronze medalists at the 2028 Los Angeles Games.
Why has this provoked reactions in the sports world? Well, because it’s the governing body of the sport that is making payments at an event that still at times pretends it is the purest of athletic contests. The Olympic Games were famously amateur for most of the 20th century, but amateur sports are for hobbyists nowadays. If you’re an Olympian, you’re basically a professional.
In the 21st century, Olympic athletes get paid – not usually to appear, but to perform. An Olympic gold medal is a pretty sure way of getting rich. Some countries offer hundreds of thousands of dollars for medals. Japan offers $45,000 for a gold medal.
Even the Communist countries of old would compensate their athletes, who they regarded as an extension of the state and a tool of soft power. Usually, payment came in the form of a nice house or apartment, and maybe a car and an easy job upon retirement. A gold medal not only carried financial........
© Japan Today
visit website
login
who are we?
contact us
qosheapp
Toi Staff
Gideon Levy
Belen Fernandez
Rami G Khouri
Mort Laitner
Rachel Marsden
Bradley Blankenship
Donald Low
Ali Fathollah-Nejad
Nikkei Editorial
Abbas Juma
Michael Kwet
