Athletics’ Olympic Prize Money Plan Unfair to Other Sports, Redgrave Says

 This photograph taken on April 10, 2024, shows a detail of the headquarters of the Paris 2024 Olympics and Paralympics Organizing Committee (Cojo), in the Saint-Denis suburb of Paris. (AFP)
This photograph taken on April 10, 2024, shows a detail of the headquarters of the Paris 2024 Olympics and Paralympics Organizing Committee (Cojo), in the Saint-Denis suburb of Paris. (AFP)
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Athletics’ Olympic Prize Money Plan Unfair to Other Sports, Redgrave Says

 This photograph taken on April 10, 2024, shows a detail of the headquarters of the Paris 2024 Olympics and Paralympics Organizing Committee (Cojo), in the Saint-Denis suburb of Paris. (AFP)
This photograph taken on April 10, 2024, shows a detail of the headquarters of the Paris 2024 Olympics and Paralympics Organizing Committee (Cojo), in the Saint-Denis suburb of Paris. (AFP)

World Athletics' (WA) decision to give prize money to Olympic gold medalists is unfair to other sports that cannot afford to do the same, Britain's five-times Olympic rowing champion Steve Redgrave said.

Athletics became the first sport to offer prize money to Olympic champions when WA President Sebastian Coe announced on Wednesday that gold medalists in Paris this year will each earn $50,000.

The announcement was met with a positive reaction from the world's leading athletes, with the $2.4 million prize pot to be split among the 48 gold medalists in Paris.

A total of $540 million was allocated to the 28 sports at the Tokyo Games with World Athletics receiving the most at $40 million.

Redgrave, who won five successive Olympic gold medals between 1984 and 2000, said the prize money plan would turn the Olympics into a "two-tier" system.

"If you win an Olympic gold medal in any athletics event, you are able to earn substantial financial gains from those results," the 62-year-old told the Daily Mail in an interview published on Thursday.

"It smacks a bit hard for the sports that can't afford to do this. Rowing is in that situation. We struggle bringing sponsorship and finance into it. This separates the elite sports to the others like rowing, canoeing and most combat sports.

"They just don't have the same funding that there is in World Athletics. I would prefer that the money they're putting in to be helping more of the grassroots of their own sports - or helping other Olympic sports to be able to be at the same level on the same footprint."



‘Flooding Rains’ Threaten to Dampen Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony

Paris 2024 Olympics - Opening Ceremony - Paris, France - July 26, 2024. Spectators are seen behind the Eiffel Tower ahead of the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympics. (Reuters)
Paris 2024 Olympics - Opening Ceremony - Paris, France - July 26, 2024. Spectators are seen behind the Eiffel Tower ahead of the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympics. (Reuters)
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‘Flooding Rains’ Threaten to Dampen Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony

Paris 2024 Olympics - Opening Ceremony - Paris, France - July 26, 2024. Spectators are seen behind the Eiffel Tower ahead of the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympics. (Reuters)
Paris 2024 Olympics - Opening Ceremony - Paris, France - July 26, 2024. Spectators are seen behind the Eiffel Tower ahead of the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympics. (Reuters)

The Paris Olympics look likely to get off to a soggy start.

Meteo-France, the French weather service, is predicting “flooding rains” Friday evening when the opening ceremony is set to unroll along the Seine River. But the show is set to go on as planned, starting at 1:30 p.m. EDT/7:30 p.m. CEST and should last more than three hours.

Already in the late afternoon, skies were gray with intermittent drizzle. There was a silver lining, though, with temperatures expected to stay relatively warm throughout the evening.

Instead of a traditional march into a stadium, about 6,800 athletes will parade on more than 90 boats on the Seine River for 6 kilometers (3.7 miles). Though 10,700 athletes are expected to compete at these Olympics, hundreds of soccer players are based outside Paris, surfers are in Tahiti and many have yet to arrive for their events in the second week, organizers said Thursday.

Hundreds of thousands of people, including 320,000 paying and invited ticket-holders, are expected to line the Seine’s banks as athletes are paraded along the river on boats.