We were told last week how World Athletics is leading the way in modernising the Olympics, showing all the other sports how behind the times they are and how much the international athletics federation is on the side of its athletes. Sebastian Coe, chair of World Athletics, announced that $50,000 (£40,000) prize money will be given to Olympic gold medallists in track and field events in Paris, proudly returning the sport’s commercial gains back to the athletes and boldly facing up to the facts of modern sport.
I’m all for moving sport forward, increasing its positive social impact, empowering and valuing our athletes more, so I’m keen to consider the benefits. To do that we should take a step back to consider what the Olympics is about. Brilliant athletic performance, incredible spectator experiences, a demonstration of global human capability driven by a sporting philosophy based on wholesome values (albeit somewhat tarnished over time).
Will a cash prize improve the performance we see at the Olympics? I don’t think so. To suggest otherwise would insult any Olympian and muddy the reality that what gets you out of bed on a cold, wintry morning to train three times that day is certainly not the possibility of a cash prize. Will more athletes favour the Olympics over the Diamond League now? Hard to see this amount as game-changing in that regard.
And it’s surely an unwinnable race, bribing athletes to compete at the Olympics who don’t value it, all the while missing playing to the strengths of the Olympics as different and of a much higher status than winning the Diamond League which no one remembers.
From a spectator perspective, will it make the races more impressive, more exciting, more inspirational? I fear quite the opposite. I’m already dreading the moment a commentator starts associating the athletes on the startline with the financial prize waiting at the end of the home straight. Rather than who’s going to be the fastest, strongest, furthest throwing athlete in the world, we’ll hear pundits deliberate on who’s going to be the first one to pick up the lump sum. I don’t think anyone gains if already disillusioned, waning audiences equate the boundary-breaking performances of human possibility with a pile of dollars.
This move further damages the image that audiences and particularly youngsters watching their sporting idols see – that the drivers and rewards of brilliance are purely material: bonuses, prizes, money and medals. In fact, the world of sport and all our lives are crying out for greater attention and investment in the intrinsic values of purpose and belonging to a community. What drove Andy Murray and Justin Rose to change their calendar and their training to attempt to win the Olympics was as far from cash prizes as you can get.
Audiences (and competitors) across sport beyond the Olympics more widely have been turned off by the increased commercialisation and commoditisation of athletes (alongside corruption and cheating scandals). Mental health experts and publicly shared athlete stories have taught us that sportsmen and women struggle psychologically when identified solely as some highly specialised sports robot, rather than a whole person with doubts and struggles, nerves and emotions, and an aspiration to contribute to sport beyond the clothes brand they model.
In the process of announcing this new bold move, Lord Coe pointed out its greatest flaw: you can’t put a price on an Olympic gold medal. By the end of the press release, he had. It’s fair to say that the Olympic philosophy is not in a good shape – but is that a reason to give up altogether on the idea of strong social values? To abandon that long-standing, beautiful glimpse of a rare equality in sport and life where a shooting gold medal, a rowing gold medal and a 100m gold are all worth the same. Clearly, not all the other sports could replicate this move, even if they wanted to. Might some try but offer half as much, tragically setting up different values across sports?
I applaud the principle of returning commercial gains back to the athletes, and that resonated positively out of the press release. Until you realise that it’s the tiniest percentage of athletes who will benefit from this, who are already likely to be the best-funded and who will in the moment they win immediately increase their commercial worth anyway.
Coe suggested this money could encourage gold medallists to stay on another four years, thereby strengthening the sport. But that makes no sense given the costs of four years of training, coaching, facilities and medical back-up. Does it pressure the International Olympic Committee to give back more of its commercial gains? It’s hard to see that link unfolding in practice.
What if we thought more innovatively about the principle of giving back to the athletes: what about $1,000 to every athlete that qualifies to level the playing field? Or funding to athletes from countries without a government-backed system such as British athletes and richer nations enjoy? Or support for athletes facing retirement and transition to the next phase of their lives?
For a healthier, fairer sport and an even closer race next time, the gold medallists are arguably the last ones who should be rewarded. How about the winners earning a place on a commission to decide together how that chunk of money from the federation that belongs to the athletes should be spent? That could be worth more to the athletes and to the sport and guard against those feelings of anticlimax that so often torment winners. What prize could be greater than real influence and power to create change in the sport they love? But I’m not sure there’s any willingness to share that with the athletes.
Or is this a different power game? Some have said it’s a move that puts Coe in the spotlight, leading from the front to take over from Thomas Bach at the IOC. It’s hard to applaud such moves under the guise of “commercial savviness” as saving the future of sport. So back to the main question: who benefits? I’m still not sure.
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