LAUSANNE: The International Olympic Committee, which has been under growing pressure to introduce prize money to the Olympics, on Wednesday announced it was setting up a grant for every athlete who takes part in the Games.<\/p>\n
The program was adopted on the opening day of the IOC annual session in Lausanne, where the body also approved amendments to its Olympic Charter, as well as changes to its process for evaluating potential hosts.<\/p>\n
While the Olympics have long since dropped the requirement that athletes are amateurs, the IOC had, until Wednesday, been reluctant to pay competitors. \u201cEvery athlete at the Olympic Games will be eligible for a new $10,000 (8,800 euros) \u2018Fit for the Future Olympian Grant\u2019,\u201d said the IOC on its website, adding that the total fund would be worth $140m for each four-year Olympic cycle.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll Olympians, no matter where they\u2019re from doesn\u2019t matter where they finish,\u201d would be entitled to the grant, said the chair of the Athletes\u2019 Commission Pau Gasol, during a press conference at the IOC Session in Lausanne.<\/p>\n
Gasol, a former Spanish basketball star, added that the payment would be \u201cacknowledging the importance and relevance of being an Olympian, participating and representing your sport and to your country in the Games.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s not prize money,\u201d he stressed. He also said Paralympians would not be eligible. The IOC said athletes who competed at the Milan-Cortina Winter Games this year would be eligible to apply once the application process had been set up.<\/p>\n
\u2018Seed money\u2019 <\/p>\n
President Kirsty Coventry has consistently opposed such a suggestion. On Wednesday, she said that the money for the grants would not cut into the shares of IOC revenue that go to National Olympic Committees or internationals sports federations.<\/p>\n
She said the IOC had decided the $10,000 figure \u201cwas an acceptable amount everywhere that would allow for someone to start something or have it as a little bit of seed money.\u201d Gasol, a former National Basketball Association star, said NBA players, National Hockey League players and tennis stars would be eligible for the grants.<\/p>\n
Coventry\u2019s opposition to prize money has drawn a hostile response from some former athletes. South African Roland Schoeman, like Coventry a former swimmer, launched a petition calling for the resignation of the president and the entire executive board.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe IOC generates billions. That value comes from the athletes. It is time to demand accountability,\u201d he wrote. World Athletics broke with tradition and introduced prize money at the 2024 Paris Games\u2014each gold medal winner in the 48 track and field events receiving $50,000 — relay runners sharing the prize pot.<\/p>\n
\u201cDoes this undermine the amateur ethic?\u201d said World Athletics president Sebastian Coe at the time of the announcement. \u201cWe\u2019re now operating in a completely different planet from when I was competing, so it is very important that the sport recognizes that change in landscape.\u201d<\/p>\n
The IOC meanwhile made several changes to its charter, including a new paragraph emphasising its political neutrality. \u201cThe IOC\u2019s role is: to apply neutrality at all times, free from governmental, cultural, societal or economic pressure,\u201d reads the addition.<\/p>\n
Asked if this greater emphasis on staying out of politics was paving the way for the return of Russia to the Olympic movement, Coventry replied that the IOC did not know how the change they had just made would play out.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe haven\u2019t had much time to then sit down and discuss a way forward. So give us a little bit of time to see now how we\u2019re going to implement,\u201d she said. \u201cSo, let us do that and then we\u2019ll come back to you.\u201d \u2013 AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAUSANNE: The International Olympic Committee, which has been under growing pressure to introduce prize money to the Olympics,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":92442,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[9],"tags":[46377,46378,14507,14506,94,6890,87],"class_list":["post-92441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lausanne","tag-competitors","tag-grants","tag-kuwait-news","tag-kuwait-times","tag-lausanne","tag-offer","tag-olympics"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116814690830277243","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}