DROITWICH’S world champion swimmer Matt Richards believes Olympic medallists should be offered cash in every sport.
For the first time, track and field athletes will net £40,000 should they win gold at Paris 2024 with relay teams sharing the same amount.
Some nations offer medal bonuses but no similar arrangements are in place in the other sports on the Olympic programme.
Richards was crowned world champion in the men’s 200m freestyle last year and is part of Team GB’s 33-strong swimming squad heading to the 2024 Games in Paris this summer.
The IOC claim they invest $4.2 million in grassroots sport every day but Richards has urged organisers to step in and redress the balance.
The 21-year-old said: “Winning Olympic gold is incredible and that’s why we go, we go knowing we’re not going to make a lot of money off the back of it.
“The Olympics make crazy money every four years – big business – but the athletes aren’t able to win any of that.
“If the IOC stepped in and offered a blanket amount, that would make a lot of athletes a lot happier.
“There are athletes who are struggling to make ends meet, week in week out, and struggling to put food on their table.
“You see stories of athletes going bankrupt to go to the Olympics and I don’t think that’s right.
“I’d love it if World Aquatics came out and offered money for medals, I’m not going to turn that down. There need to be some conversations had about how we better support athletes at the Olympics.
“There needs to be something done about it.”
His fellow freestyle swimmer, Australian James Magnussen, has been one of the first athletes to sign up for the Enhanced Games.
Magnussen will deliberately dope in an attempt to win $1m by trying to break a world record at the controversial event.
Richards believes Olympic prize money could help ward off such threats to the integrity of his sport.
Richards added: “The Enhanced Games is offering stupid money for athletes to become drug cheats.
“To protect the sport, protect the Olympics and everything that’s great about what we do, the governing bodies are going to have to start putting money up to stop athletes straying over to events like that.”
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