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The International Olympic Committee has broken with 130 years of tradition by deciding to pay athletes to compete at the Olympic Games.
Starting with the recent Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, all competitors will be entitled to a $10,000 (£7,600) grant from the IOC regardless of whether they are NBA stars or on the poverty line.
Around 14,000 athletes from the Summer and Winter Games are eligible for the payment, at a cost to the IOC of around $140m (£106m).
Athletes would receive the money six months after competing, provided they did not fail a doping test or violate the Olympic charter.
“This grant will be available to every Olympian,” said Pau Gasol, the head of the IOC’s Athletes’ Commission. “Not just medal winners, not just athletes from certain countries, every Olympian. Because while every athlete’s journey is different, every Olympian has made sacrifices to reach the Olympic stage, years of dedication, years of hard work, years of believing in a dream.”
Gasol, an Spanish Olympic basketball medallist, confirmed that NBA players would be eligible for the grant, but suggested they might want to use it to help future stars rather than keep the money.
“It’s really their right to use that grant, and hopefully we’ll provide them with great options for them to use it wisely in a way that is very satisfying and rewarding for them,” he added.
Gasol stressed the $10,000 offer was “not prize money”, but the move marks another significant shift in IOC policy under its new leader, Kirsty Coventry. In March Coventry introduced greater protections for the female category as part of her Fit for the Future reforms, which are designed to keep the Olympics at the forefront of global sport.
She insisted that the grant was “just the start” in her plans to keep the Olympics at the forefront of the sporting world. “This is not the end,” she said. “This is the beginning of this next chapter, and we’re very clear on the strategic frameworks and the strategies that we want to put in place.”
The new policy also earned praise from Sebastian Coe, one of Coventry’s rivals for the top job last year. The former Olympic champion oversaw rewarding track and field champions at the 2024 Paris Olympics with $50,000.
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“This is a historic moment for the movement and I’m absolutely delighted to be in the room when this has been announced,” Coe told his fellow IOC members.
The IOC also plans to announce the hosts of the 2036 Olympics next year. India and Qatar have long been seen as among the favourites but IOC member Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović said that 10 countries had shown an interest in the Games.
The body’s executive board would pick an official shortlist for “deeper evaluation of a number of interested parties with developed projects. “We talked of more than 10, so now it is becoming a bit more clear,” she added.
