Eleven Deep Thoughts on World Athletics Providing $50k prize money for Olympic Track & Field Gold

Eleven Deep Thoughts on World Athletics Providing $50k prize money for Olympic Track & Field Gold

1. On April 11, World Athletics announced in a news release that it would be the first global sports federation to provide prize money for each Olympic gold medal in track and field, beginning in Paris 2024. The Prize money announced was $50,000 US.

2. Seb Coe then held a day of media meetings with key media worldwide. One of his last groups was the specific global track geek crowd: LetsRun, Track & Field News, Runners World, Athletics Weekly, and RunBlogRun. In this media, we were allowed questions only regarding the Olympic prize money announcement.

3. This writer asked Seb Coe how he thought the IOC would respond to this obvious shot across the bow of the Olympic ship. Seb Coe, President of World Athletics, told us, in a performance worthy of an Academy Award, that Thomas Bach, President of the IOC, encourages the sports federations to
forge their own paths in their own sports. I am convinced then, as I am now, that Seb Coe knew that the IOC would lose their complete minds over this announcement.

4. Several media sources note that Thomas Bach was warned about one hour on Seb Coe’s press day. We are told that Bach was with President Macron of France, oohing and aahing at the new Olympic venues. Bach did not come out negative immediately; he built to being truly annoyed.

5. A few weeks later, Thomas Bach and the Association of International Summer Sports Federations, hiding behind the Olympic ideal of Amateurism, attempted to show that providing money lowered the value of an Olympic medal because it put a price on the medal. Thomas Bach came out and did not support the Olympic prize money announcement by World Athletics.

6. Seb Coe was quite careful in his April 11 announcement. Coe is only second to the incomparable Steve Jobs, who used to take hours for every minute of a talk. Seb Coe told the media on April 11 that, in his earlier days as an athlete, he might not have supported this Olympic prize money, but that he now, as a season global athletics leader,  thought that it was a beginning in providing some compensation for the long 12-15-year journey as an athlete builds to Olympic level.

7. RunBlogRun, as a public service, will provide a brief history lesson on the wonderful world of Amateurism. Baron Pierre de Coubertin was the founder of the modern Olympic movement. De Coubertin disliked women’s sports immensely and saw Amateurism as a way to protect…