What’s a gold medal worth? Cash for medals in historic Olympics move

By Michael Gleeson

April 11, 2024 — 11.22am

The news

An Olympic gold medal is not all a winning athlete will take home from Paris 2024.

World Athletics announced on Thursday (AEST) that it will pay $US50,000 ($75,000) in prizemoney to gold medallists in each of the sport’s 48 track and field events in Paris. Relay teams will receive the same amount, to be shared among the team.

World Athletics boss Lord Sebastian Coe.Credit: Getty Images

The sport has committed a total prize pool of $3.6 million to the historic initiative.

Only gold medallists will receive the payments in Paris but World Athletics boss Sebastian Coe said the plan was to extend the prizemoney to silver and bronze medallists at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

Is money for medals a new thing?

Yes, it’s the first time a world governing body has offered prize money for medals at the Olympics, given the modern Games were an amateur sporting event when they originated in 1896. However, some athletes do receive payments from their countries’ governments, from private sponsors or national sporting bodies.

For example, the Australian Olympic Committee announced in 2022 it would distribute $1.485 million to 108 athletes who finished on the podium at the Tokyo Games under its medal incentive funding program.

This isn’t prizemoney so much as an incentive to keep the top performers in their sports, with payments of $20,000 (gold), $15,000 (silver), and $10,000 (bronze) for each year they stay in the sport towards the next Olympics.

The AOC handed out more than $10 million in incentive funding in the four years after the Rio Games.

Sprinting superstar Usain Bolt.Credit: AP

After the Tokyo Paralympics, then prime minister Scott Morrison announced Paralympic medallists would receive the same bonuses after Chloe Dalton, a rugby sevens gold medallist and AFLW player, spoke up about the disparity.

At the time, the US paid its gold medal winners a bonus of $80,000, while Japan offered payments of $96,600 for Olympic gold and $58,000 for Paralympic gold.

Why is this happening?

Athletics, like all sports, is in a competition to attract the world’s best talented athletes. It is difficult to compete financially with the big professional sports, so the money will be, if not an additional inducement, then at least recognition that many athletes struggle to earn a living while training between Olympics. Not all athletes can earn like Usain Bolt did – in 2018 Forbes magazine estimated the Jamaican’s worth at $47.5 million but $46 million came from private endorsements.

British runner Josh Kerr recently described prizemoney in athletics as “crazy versus other sports”, and not in a good way, after winning $61,000 for gold at the world indoor athletics championships.

“We are very lucky to have the likes of Noah Lyles, Grant Holloway, Femke Bol; having amazing athletes come here and do their job,” he said. “But those numbers are lower than appearance fees now for athletes of that calibre. We’ve got to find ways to attract athletes to race more and to race head-to-heads more ... The way to do that is pay athletes good money.”

It is also recognition, belatedly, that the athletes are the drivers of the huge revenues generated by the Olympics.

According to the London Telegraph, the International Olympic Committee raked in $11.66 billion during the last cycle to Tokyo 2021.

Hang on, isn’t the Olympics all about the spirit of pure competition?

Well, originally, but that ceased to be the case long ago. Bolt was No.45 on Forbes′ list of the world’s highest-paid athletes just after his retirement, and the Olympic basketball tournament in Paris will feature NBA superstars including LeBron James (total earnings of $183 million last year), Steph Curry ($154 million) and Australian Josh Giddey ($10 million this year). Many of the soccer players in Paris, including the Matildas, are professionals.

Coe said he did not believe awarding prizemoney conflicted with the Olympic spirit.

“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 … are directly returned to those who make the Games the global spectacle that it is,” he said.

Australian Nicola Olyslagers is a favourite for the women’s high jump gold medal at Paris 2024.Credit: Getty Images

“And as we grow as a sport I want to increase that pot.”

“If I thought athletes were only competing because there was a financial pot at the end of the day, then I might take a very different view – but they are not. I think this gives them a little bit more skin in the game.”

Will any Australians hit the jackpot?

Nina Kennedy and Nicola Olyslagers would have a spring in their step today, which is no bad thing given they compete in the pole vault and high jump, respectively. They are favourites to win gold in Paris. There is then a list of up to half-a-dozen Australians – from high jumper Eleanor Patterson to walker Jemima Montag – who are fancied to be on the podium, and if you are in the medal frame anything could happen.

Jemima Montag took silver in the 20-kilometre walk at last year’s world athletics championships.Credit: AP

“Athletes have such a short career span, and there isn’t a lot of money to make in a sport like athletics, so it’s really great that there is an incentive like this $50,000,” Kennedy said.

“Even though it isn’t their (World Athletics) event, they still make a lot of money off it .”

Will other sporting bodies get on board?

That’s to be determined but World Aquatics, the governing body for swimming, is already being pressured to provide extra financial incentives for Olympic gold medals.

As it stands, World Aquatics won’t be providing bonuses in Paris.

“This is something that World Aquatics has looked at ahead of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics but decided to invest extra prize money into World Aquatics events instead,” a spokesperson told this masthead. “This policy continues to be the same for World Aquatics today.”

Swimmers who win a world championship gold medal take home $US20,000 ($30,664).

Dolphins head coach Rohan Taylor says Australian swimmers would welcome greater prizemoney.

“I don’t think anyone’s going to say no,” Taylor said. “How can we properly support athletes in their endeavours to get the most out of the sport? They commit so much time and effort for those brief moments and if there’s a reward or recognition there for them, I think that’s a good thing.”

What they said

“I came from an era where to compete for the UK, it was a second-class rail ticket or a 5p per mile allowance and you went for the one that was the best margin – and a 75p meal voucher,” Coe told journalists on Thursday (AEST). “My view is that the world has changed. It’s really important that where possible we create a sport that is financially viable for our competitors. This is the beginning of that.”
Michael Johnson, double Olympic gold medallist from Atlanta 1996, described the move as “long overdue”.
Karsten Warholm, the reigning Olympic 400m hurdles champion, said in the London Telegraph the move would not change his motivation but was a step “in the right direction” to build a professional sport.
Rob Koehler, director general of Global Athlete, said: “Kudos to Seb Coe and World Athletics for breaking the outdated status quo to compensate athletes.”
Australian swimming great Dawn Fraser said: “I think it’s about time. The athletes deserve it, they put a lot of time into their training and I think it’s a wonderful idea that they’re doing this now.”

WAtoday