Price for gold isn't right for IOC

Plan to pay winners criticized as violating spirit of Games, but athletes don't see problem

- KERRY GILLESPIE

Canada's Moh Ahmed has no problem with World Athletics paying gold-medal winners. "We put a lot of training and effort into this," says Ahmed, who won 5,000 silver in Tokyo in 2021.

When World Athletics announced it would pay Olympic gold medallists for the first time at this summer’s Games in Paris, reaction from Olympic sport institutions and the International Olympic Committee was fast and furious.

The move is “repugnant to the fundamental principles of the Olympic movement” and “undermines the values of Olympism,” they said. The governing body for track and field should stick to its knitting and focus on reducing inequalities between countries instead of paying winners, said the IOC.

The Association of Summer Olympic International Federations stated: “an Olympic gold medal cannot and should not be put at a price.”

Why not, says Canada’s Moh Ahmed, since there’s certainly a high cost to trying to win one.

“It's definitely cool,” Ahmed said at the Claude-Robillard sports complex after winning the 5,000metre race at the Canadian track and field trials and booking a ticket to his fourth Olympics.

“But I feel like the IOC should be paying (and) a lot more,” he said. “There’s a lot of TV dollars, there’s corporate dollars that we actually can't share as athletes.”

Ahmed’s silver medal at the Tokyo Games in 5,000 metres was Canada’s first Olympic medal in a longdistance track event. He did that a few days after he finished sixth in 10,000 metres, the best Canadian result since 1912.