“I think this gives them a little bit more skin in the game,” Sebastian Coe said while defending the pioneering action taken by World Athletics. Incidentally, just a few weeks ago, Coe, the chief of World Athletics, announced providing prize money of $50k to all the track and field champions in the upcoming Paris Olympics.
But instead of “adding more skin”, the announcement of prize money drew a lot of flak toward World Athletics. Initially, Noah Lyles ignited the fire by sharing the key factors behind such a proposition. Tara Davis-Woodhall followed that by doing her part, pointing fingers at the core issues.
While giving her takes on the announcement as mentioned earlier, Tara mentioned the high expenditures a track and field athlete generally faces for competitive preparations. “Why do we have to go all the way to Europe, spend all this money, and barely get a dime when we come back to the [United] States?”, she said to support reality.
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Kenny Bednarek and Tara Davis-Woodall give their opinions on World Athletics becoming the first federation to offer prize money directly to Olympic medallists at Paris 2024
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Furthermore, she was amazed to see World Athletics putting money in a place where “they aren’t even sponsoring”. So, deep down the wire, the 24-year-old American athlete threw a belter to the role World Athletics has been playing around. But according to Tara, the prize money announcement might be “pretty cool” – at least when the track and field athletes are prone to spend more on their preparation.
Eventually, in the same conversation, another athlete, Kenny Bednarek, was also present to share his take. So talking about Sebastian Coe’s announcement, he also preferred to point out the burning issue of lack of sponsoring. “You have athletes that work their b**t off… every single day, every single year… some compensation is needed for them,” he conceded. But what is more necessary on this point- prize money or a sponsorship? Sebastian Coe has an answer.
While defending the prize money, Coe, being a former Olympic track and field champion, promised to increase the investment for the betterment of the track and field athletes. Hinting at that move, the CEO said to add more money to the announced prize sum for the upcoming LA Olympics in 2028. But that could be a barrage of sand in front of a flood. At least some track and field veterans think that.
