World Championships prize money boosted by Russia fine: Coe

EUGENE, United States: World Athletics is boosting prize money at next year’s World Championships by $1 million using cash from the fine imposed on Russia for its state-backed doping scandal, the governing body said Sunday.

A total of $2 million from the Russian fines has been set aside to increase prize money by $1 million at each of the next two editions of the World Championships, in Eugene in 2022, and Budapest in 2023, World Athletics chief Sebastian Coe told reporters at the US Olympic trials in Oregon.

“That’s 44 disciplines, about $23,000 per discipline,” Coe said. “And it is funded out of the fine that the Russian Federation paid. I was very keen to make sure that that money got paid back into the hands of clean athletes.”

At the 2019 World Championships in Doha, $7.53 million in prize money was distributed amongst athletes who finished in the top eight of an event. World Athletics said in a statement that the $1 million injection received by Eugene and Budapest was intended to go to as many athletes as possible in leading positions, although how the money was distributed was still to be decided.

World Athletics’ Athletes Commission and Competition Commission will give a recommendation to the governing body’s ruling council on how the funds should be allocated, although Coe hinted he hoped to see the funds “trickle down” after the hardship of the pandemic.

“It’s been pretty hard pounding for the athletes over the last year and a half,” Coe said. “Clearly I want the Athletes Commission and the Competition Commission to look at how we distribute it.

“My gut instinct, without nudging them too hard, is that I want it to be more of a trickle down because the athletes have been hit hard over the last year or so.” Russia paid a total of $6.3 million to World Athletics last August — a $5 million fine and $1.3 million in costs — after the country’s athletics federation was threatened with expulsion by track and field’s global governing body.

“My instinct when we got the money from the Russian federation is that it did need to be put to good use,” Coe said Sunday. “I didn’t want it just to be put into reserves.” Russia was fined a total of $10 million in March last year — with $5 million of the fine suspended for two years — after the federation admitting breaking doping rules.