For participating in the Olympic Games: athletes will receive $10,000 each from the IOC
27 June 14:18
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has announced that it will pay Olympic athletes approximately $140 million by 2028. A special fund will award grants of $10,000 to compensate athletes for their training in preparation for the competitions, the IOC said, as reported by "Komersant Ukrainian".
Under the new initiative, athletes will be able to apply for grants of $10,000 after participating in the Olympic Games. The first to be eligible for these payments will be nearly 2,900 participants in the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina.
Grants will also be available to approximately 11,000 athletes who will compete at the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles. The total fund for participants in these Games is estimated at $110 million.
However, only athletes who meet integrity criteria—specifically, those with no violations of anti-doping rules—will be eligible to receive funding.
In recent years, the IOC has rejected calls to pay prize money at the Olympic Games. Instead, grants from the new fund are not prize money for medalists, but assistance for athletes immediately following the Summer or Winter Games.
IOC President Kirsty Coventry confirmed at a press conference that the organization does not plan to use its Olympic revenues to pay prize money to medalists. Instead, the IOC is funding the “Olympic Solidarity” program, which will provide grants of thousands of dollars to athletes from less affluent countries who are preparing for qualification and competition in the Summer or Winter Games.
The program’s budget will also cover the expenses of teams, coaches, and officials and will total $650 million over the four-year Olympic cycle, which includes Milan-Cortina and Los Angeles.
“This is a victory for all of us. Athletes want more direct support throughout their Olympic journey and beyond,” said Pau Gasol, a member of the IOC Executive Board and two-time Olympic silver medalist in basketball, adding that the payments will not be “prize money.”
Athletes will be able to apply for the grant through a special IOC online platform. Funds will be transferred via National Olympic Committees, which will be required to confirm that the money has been received directly by the athletes.
The IOC is currently working on the grant distribution mechanism to begin accepting applications from Milan-Cortina 2026 participants by the end of this year, with the first payments to be made in 2027.
The launch of the program was one of the key decisions of Kirsty Coventry’s first year as IOC President. In contrast, the payment of prize money to Olympic medalists was a central policy of one of Coventry’s opponents in the IOC presidential election, Sebastian Ko, the head of the International Association of Athletics Federations.
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