World Athletics announced on Wednesday that it will become the first international federation to award prize money at an Olympics beginning at the 2024 Games in Paris with gold medal winners in each of the 48 athletics events receiving Fifty Thousand Dollars.
While athletes are often paid by sponsors and the Olympic tradition of amateur competition has long since been discontinued, the decision by the international body to pay prize money represents a major shift for the Olympic Games.
World Athletics President Lord Sebastian Coe told reporters that the decision reflected the efforts of track and field athletes which attract billions of eyeballs to the TV coverage of the Olympics.
The total prize fund of 2.4 million Dollars will come from the International Olympic Committee IOC revenue share allocation that World Athletics receives every four years.
Prize money will be extended to the winners of silver and bronze medals from the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
The sport of athletics began paying prize money to gold medallists at the 1997 world championships.
Winners at last years championships in Budapest received Seventy Thousand Dollars.
The Paris Olympics takes place from July 26 to August 11, 2024.