Kirsty Coventry has opened one of the most sensitive questions in Olympic sport: should athletes receive direct payments for participation and medals
International Olympic Committee President Kirsty Coventry has once again brought to the forefront a question that has accompanied the Olympic movement for years: should the IOC pay athletes directly for competing at the Games or for medals won. In statements published by the New Zealand outlet Sport Nation, Coventry clearly said that she does not support the introduction of direct payments to athletes at the Olympic Games. According to her position, the foundation of the Olympic model must remain solidarity, meaning a system in which revenues are distributed to national Olympic committees, international federations, competition organizers and development programs, instead of money being awarded directly to participants or winners.
That statement does not come at an isolated moment. Coventry, a former Zimbabwean swimmer and two-time Olympic champion, is in the early phase of her mandate at the head of the IOC, after, according to official data from the International Olympic Committee, she was elected the organization’s tenth president on March 20, 2025. The IOC states that this made her the first woman and the first African woman to hold the highest office in the Olympic movement. Precisely because of that, her messages about athlete funding carry additional weight: they come from a person who herself built a career in a sport that, outside the biggest competitions and strongest markets, often does not provide permanent commercial security.
The debate is especially sensitive because Olympic sport is caught between two opposing pressures. On the one hand, the IOC has for years emphasized that it returns most of its revenue to sport through development programs, support and organizational mechanisms. On the other hand, many athletes and their advocates warn that it is precisely the competitors who create the greatest value of the Olympic spectacle, while some of them still face insecure income, the costs of preparation, travel, equipment, medical care and professional teams. Coventry’s statement is therefore not only a question of one financial policy, but also a signal of how the new IOC leadership sees the future relationship between the Olympic institution and athletes.
Solidarity as the IOC’s official argument
According to the IOC’s official funding data, the organization defines itself as a non-profit institution and states that 90 percent of revenue from the Games is returned to sport and athlete development around the world. That model includes support for national Olympic committees, international sports federations, organizers of Olympic events and programs intended for athletes, coaches and sports structures in countries with different levels of development. The IOC emphasizes that such distribution does not depend only on the market strength of individual sports or countries, but on the broader goal of preserving global access to Olympic sport.
Coventry built her argument precisely on that logic. In the interview reported by Sport Nation, she said that she comes from a small country and from a sport that does not always provide athletes with high earnings, but that despite this she does not believe the IOC should pay athletes at the Olympic Games. Her position reflects the classic stance of Olympic leadership: direct rewards for participation or medals could change the nature of the Olympic system and open the question of who would be paid, by what criterion, in what amount and from which part of shared revenues.
According to the IOC’s official explanation, one of the key instruments of that model is Olympic Solidarity, a program that manages part of the revenue from television rights intended for national Olympic committees. For the 2025 to 2028 cycle, the IOC approved a budget of 650 million US dollars for development and assistance, which, according to the organization’s announcement, is a 10 percent increase compared with the previous four-year period. In its official materials, the IOC states that this money is used for programs covering athletes, coaches, administrative development of national committees, Olympic scholarships and broader sports development projects.
Such a system has a clear political and sporting logic. It enables part of the revenue from the globally strongest commercial sporting event to be directed toward environments that could not independently finance preparation, infrastructure or the participation of athletes at the highest level. For countries with small markets, less developed sports systems or limited public budgets, Olympic scholarships and development programs can be decisive for participation at the Games. Critics, however, warn that such an approach does not fully answer the question of athletes’ personal income, especially those who do not have large sponsorship contracts and who rely on temporary support for financial stability.
World Athletics has already crossed the boundary of Olympic prizes
The debate on direct payment of athletes was further intensified after the decision by World Athletics. In April 2024, that organization announced that it would pay Olympic champions in athletics at the Paris Games 50,000 US dollars each, with the total fund for 48 athletics events amounting to 2.4 million dollars. According to the World Athletics announcement, the money was set aside from the share of revenue that the federation receives from the IOC, and an expansion of the model to silver and bronze medalists at the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games was also announced.
The Associated Press reported at the time that athletics had become the first sport to introduce prize money for Olympic medals in that way. According to the same report, the IOC emphasized that it does not itself award Olympic prize money, but that international federations and national Olympic committees decide independently how they will use the funds they receive within the revenue-distribution system. This opened space for different models: the IOC retains the central principle of solidarity, while individual federations can decide to direct part of their share directly toward athletes.
The decision by World Athletics changed the tone of the debate because it showed that the Olympic system can already include direct prizes, even though they are not paid by the IOC. World Athletics President Sebastian Coe presented the decision at the time as recognition of the role of athletes in creating revenue and visibility for the Olympic movement. For advocates of paying athletes, this was an argument that the Olympic economy can be modernized without undermining competitive integrity. For opponents, however, the move opens the issue of inequality among sports, because federations with higher revenues or a stronger commercial position can more easily reward their athletes than smaller and less profitable disciplines.
Coventry’s opposition to direct payments should therefore also be read as a response to the broader trend of professionalization in Olympic sport. Today’s Olympians are no longer part of the old amateur model, but their financial reality is very different. In some sports, the most successful competitors live from contracts, prizes, sponsorships and public support, while in others even elite athletes must combine training with other forms of work or rely on family and institutional assistance. A single IOC policy would therefore have to respond to very different conditions, which is one of the reasons why the organization continues to favor an indirect support system.
What the “Fit For the Future” approach means
Coventry opened the question of paying athletes during a period in which the IOC is carrying out its own adaptation process called “Fit For the Future”. According to the IOC’s official announcement, that process included the creation of working groups dealing with the future of the Youth Olympic Games, the Olympic program, protection of the women’s category, and commercial partnerships and marketing. Although direct payments to athletes are not listed as a separate working group, the debate about money is inevitably connected with the commercial model, rights revenues, sponsorships and the question of what the Olympic movement owes to athletes who compete on the biggest stage.
“Fit For the Future” builds on the IOC’s reform tradition from the period of Olympic Agenda 2020 and the Olympic Agenda 2020+5 program, but in a new political and market environment. Media rights, streaming, short digital formats, changes in audience habits, the increasing competition of other sports and entertainment content, and the pressure on the sustainability of major events are changing the way the Olympic Games are financed and presented to the public. In such circumstances, the question of direct payment of athletes becomes part of a broader conversation about how to preserve the appeal of the Games, while at the same time not turning Olympic competition into yet another system of prize funds comparable to professional leagues or tournaments.
The IOC must also balance the symbolic value of an Olympic medal and the real economic circumstances of athletes. An Olympic medal carries prestige that cannot be reduced only to monetary value, but visibility itself does not pay the costs of years of preparation. Many national systems reward medals with their own bonuses, scholarships, pensions or status rights, but these models differ from country to country. Because of this, athletes from wealthier or more sport-oriented systems often have better support than those who come from countries with limited resources, which is precisely the inequality that Olympic solidarity programs seek to reduce.
If the IOC introduced direct payments, it would have to decide whether the money would be tied to participation alone, placement, a medal, the sport, the number of appearances or some other criterion. Paying all Olympians for participation would represent a large and permanent cost, while rewarding only medals would further favor countries and systems that already have the most developed elite-sport programs. Coventry’s insistence on solidarity is therefore not only a defense of tradition, but also an attempt to avoid a model that, according to that view, could increase differences within the Olympic movement.
Athletes, revenues and the question of fair distribution
Still, arguments for more direct financial benefit for athletes have not disappeared. The Olympic Games are one of the most valuable sports products in the world, and their content is created to the greatest extent precisely by athletes. They are the center of television broadcasts, digital campaigns, sponsorship activations and global stories that the IOC and its partners use to promote the Olympic brand. That is why part of the public believes that the model of indirect distribution is not a sufficient answer to the question of individual compensation, especially when athletes are asked to participate in an increasingly demanding media and commercial environment.
In its official materials, the IOC emphasizes that it uses revenues to support athletes and sport at all levels, not only the final appearance at the Games. Such an approach also includes those who will never win a medal, coaches working in less developed systems, national committees that need institutional assistance and projects that promote education, equality and sports development. For the IOC leadership, this is proof that money already reaches athletes, although often not in the form of a direct payment to a personal account after participation or victory.
On the other hand, athletes who advocate a different system could argue that indirect support does not always guarantee a clear, transparent and sufficient benefit for the individual. National committees and federations differ in efficiency, rules and capacities, so the athlete’s experience can differ significantly depending on the country and sport. In the debate, therefore, the need for greater transparency is mentioned more and more often: how much money enters an individual system, how much is spent on administration, and how much ends up in programs that directly help athletes with preparation, recovery, travel and competitions.
For Coventry, the challenge is additionally complex because she comes from Africa and from a country that does not have the financial strength of major sporting powers. Her biography can give her credibility in defending the solidarity model, because she is personally familiar with the differences between sports systems. At the same time, athletes from less wealthy countries could be among those for whom direct Olympic payments would mean the most. For that reason, the new IOC president will have to explain convincingly how the existing model can be made more efficient, more visible and fairer without introducing universal monetary prizes.
A debate that will continue toward Los Angeles 2028
The next major point will be the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games, because World Athletics has already announced the expansion of the prize model to silver and bronze medalists. If other international federations follow the same path, the IOC will face the practical question of whether the Olympic movement can, in the long term, have different financial standards from sport to sport. Such a development would not necessarily require a change in the IOC’s official policy, but it could increase pressure on the organization to define more clearly what it considers permitted, desirable and sustainable.
Coventry’s message shows that the top of the IOC, for now, does not intend to abandon the idea that Olympic revenue should remain primarily an instrument of shared development. According to available information, there is no officially announced plan under which the IOC would introduce its own system of paying athletes for participation or medals. Instead, the current emphasis is on strengthening solidarity programs, working with national committees and reconsidering the broader structure of the Games through “Fit For the Future”.
This will not close the debate. On the contrary, the stronger Olympic sport becomes commercially, the more visible the question of athletes’ share in revenues will be. Coventry has clearly indicated that she opposes direct payments from the center of the Olympic system, but the very fact that she had to address the topic openly shows how much the framework of Olympic policy has changed. In the years leading up to Los Angeles 2028, the IOC will have to show that the solidarity model does not mean only a principled distribution of money through institutions, but real and recognizable support for the athletes because of whom the Olympic Games have global value.
Sources:
- Sport Nation – statement by IOC President Kirsty Coventry on opposition to direct payment of athletes at the Olympic Games (link)
- International Olympic Committee – official biography of Kirsty Coventry and information on her election as IOC president (link)
- International Olympic Committee – official data on funding and revenue distribution in the Olympic movement (link)
- International Olympic Committee – announcement on increasing the Olympic Solidarity budget for the 2025–2028 period (link)
- International Olympic Committee – official announcement on working groups as part of the “Fit For the Future” process (link)
- World Athletics – official announcement on the introduction of prize money for Olympic champions in athletics at the Paris 2024 Games (link)
- Associated Press – report on the World Athletics decision and the IOC’s reaction to the prize fund for Olympic medals (link)