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AIPROPX ReportYahoo Sports · 1h ago
Top performers at European track and field championships to each get 50,000 euro bonus
BIRMINGHAM, England (AP) — Ten track-and-field athletes with the best performances at next week's European championships will each receive a bonus of 50,000 euros ($58,000), the continent's governing body for athletics has confirmed.
European Athletics said its “gold crown initiative,” launched at the 2024 edition in Rome, will reward athletes across five groups of events in Birmingham for both men and women.
The men's and women's groups of events are: sprints and hurdles; middle and long distance; throws; jumps; road, combined events and relays.
A bonus — and gold crown — will go to the athlete in each group of events who “achieves the highest scoring performance in their respective finals using World Athletics scoring tables,” European Athletics said.
Olympic champion pole vaulter Armand “Mondo” Duplantis of Sweden was among the inaugural recipients.
The 500,000 euros in performance bonuses matches the total from 2024 with the goal of “attracting the best athletes and creating the best possible event for fans, sponsors and broadcasters alike,” European Athletics said.
It's part of a wider push to financially reward elite athletes.
Track and field became the first sport to pay prize money at the Olympics when World Athletics paid $50,000 to gold medalists at the 2024 Paris Games. It was a symbolic break with the amateur past of the Olympics.
In June, the International Olympic Committee pledged to pay up to $140 million to athletes through the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Games by creating a fund for $10,000 grants — not prize money officially — for which they can apply after competing.
In September, World Athletics will stage a new global championships with $150,000 prizes for gold medalists. The first Ultimate Championships will be hosted in Budapest from Sept. 11-13, showcasing Olympic, world and Diamond League champions over three evening sessions.
The seven-day European championships begin next Monday at Alexander Stadium.
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