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World Athletics is the first international governing body to award prize money at the Olympic Games as it rewards gold medal winners at Paris 2024.
The governing body has confirmed that it would provide a total prize pot of $2.4m (£1.9m) in the capital of France, with gold medallists receiving $50,000 (£39,400) and relay quartets splitting the reward.
The monteray offer will be extended to those that secure silver and bronze medals in Los Angeles in 2028, and brings track and field out of step with the rest of the Games.
As the Olympics originally began as an amateur event, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) does not award prize money, instead distributing funding via international federations (IF) and national Olympic committees (NOC).
Some NOCs choose to pass this on as direct prize money to successful athletes, but the British Olympic Association does not, instead funding indirectly.
“It is up to each IF and NOC to determine how to best serve their athletes and the global development of their sport,” the IOC explains of the organisation’s stance.
The United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) does provide prize money, with medal winners set to receive the same monetary rewards as in Tokyo at the last Summer Olympics.
Gold medallists will receive $37,500 (£29,300), silver medal winners $22,500 (£17,600) and third-placed finishers $15,000 (£11,700).
While most athletes have welcomed World Athletics’ introduction of prize money, the move has been criticised in some quarters.
Five-time rowing gold medallist Steve Redgrave suggested that most Olympic sports would be unable to match the financial offering, potentially creating a “two-tier” system and dividing athletes.
“If you win an Olympic gold medal in any athletics event, you are able to earn substantial financial gains from those results,” Redgrave told the Daily Mail.
“It smacks a bit hard for the sports that can’t afford to do this. Rowing is in that situation. We struggle bringing sponsorship and finance into it. This separates the elite sports to the others like rowing, canoeing and most combat sports.
“They just don’t have the same funding that there is in World Athletics. I would prefer that the money they’re putting in to be helping more of the grassroots of their own sports or helping other Olympic sports to be able to be at the same level on the same footprint.”
