European Athletics Championships 2028: Record £3m prize fund and the forgotten finishers

Thirty years after the changing-room door, I know that the smell of victory and the smell of tears are the same. Both are salty, both are sharp, both linger in the throat of a woman who has just left the track. I remember the 800m final in Shenyang in 2026, when the runner who finished second by 0.08 seconds cried not because of defeat, but because her coach had forced her to run the wrong tactics despite her protest before the gun. That day I wrote a story praising her fighting spirit, but I kept the real story for myself. Thirty-five years later, reading the European Athletics announcement about a record prize fund for the 2028 European Championships in Silesia, Poland, I remember her again. Money can change an athlete's life, but it cannot change the way they face themselves after the finish line. The European Athletics Championships have long been seen as one of the most prestigious arenas in the old continent, but prestige has never come with money. The amateur era ended long ago, yet for decades Olympic and world champions still competed for medals, for flags, for colours. Prize money at continental championships was almost insignificant, because World Athletics long held the view that the Olympics and the World Championships are peaks of honour that need no cash. Memories of the amateur era remain vivid in European athletics. In the 1980s, when I started my career, top athletes still had to ask for leave from work to compete internationally, still had to borrow money to buy shoes. Equality then meant equality in poverty. So the announcement of a €3.5 million fund by European Athletics is a cultural milestone, and also a financial one. It formally recognises that athletes are workers, worthy of payment for their sweat and tears. The landscape is changing faster than a 100m sprinter. When World Athletics announced the Ultimate Championship with a $10 million prize fund, about £7.4 million, over just three days in Budapest, continental federations began to worry. European Athletics understood that if it did not act, its biggest stars could be drawn to richer events, and the European Championships would become a showcase for second-tier athletes. That competitive context explains why the governing body's statement about Silesia 2028 emphasises the word record. The prize fund of about £3 million, equivalent to €3.5 million, is spread evenly across all 50 events, from sprints, distance running, jumps, throws to combined events and road running. No longer will only a few marquee events receive attention while less glamorous disciplines are financially abandoned. The most striking number is not the total fund, but the payment structure. Under the new model, the top eight in every event are paid: €30,000 for the champion, €15,000 for silver, €10,000 for bronze, then €5,000, €4,000, €3,000, €2,000 and €1,000 for places four through eight. Multiply that by 50 events and the total reaches about €3.5 million, exactly matching the roughly £3 million figure in the headlines. What matters is that this model is completely different from the old one. At the previous European Championships, European Athletics offered only 10 bonuses of €50,000 each, split equally between five men and five women. The money went only to performances ranked highest under the World Athletics scoring tables, a system that converts marks into points. In other words, an athlete could win a gold medal and still receive nothing if the performance did not reach a sufficiently high score. Take Birmingham 2026: Great Britain and Northern Ireland won 19 medals, including 9 golds, yet not one of those golds earned the €50,000 bonus. The team triumphed in medals but went home empty-handed in money. The new model eliminates that paradox. Paying by position, simple and transparent, turns the European Championships into a real payroll: reach the top eight and you are paid, regardless of whether your mark is beautiful enough on the scoring table. The new model also allows nations with balanced squads to maximise income. A country with 50 athletes in the top eight across 50 events will earn far more than a country with one superstar dominating a single event. Under the old model, an unexpected sprint could bring €50,000. Under the new model, that money is spread among those finishing in the leading group. This change reflects a development philosophy: instead of celebrating exceptional individuals, European Athletics has chosen to nurture the depth of the whole system. National federations, especially those with strong youth development systems such as Britain, Germany, Italy, France, the Netherlands and host nation Poland, will have to rethink their investment strategies. An athlete finishing sixth or seventh at the European Championships now creates economic value for their country, something nobody counted before. People ask what a woman understands about tactics. I answer by counting an athlete's breaths from the stands, more accurately than a stopwatch. And the breathing of national federations, I can hear it, is changing with this new calculation. They will no longer bet everything on a single star. They will invest more broadly, training more athletes capable of reaching the top eight. In the long run, that may be the best thing a prize-money policy can deliver. But I want to turn the story around. They call £3 million a record, but that record only means something within the European Championships. Beside the $10 million Ultimate Championship, the €3.5 million is a second-tier ticket in athletics' booming prize economy. More importantly, the new structure has a gap: only the top eight are paid; from ninth place onward, athletes go home with nothing. They still train, still compete, still pay for coaches, nutritionists, physiotherapists and flights across Europe. We tend to read the headline record prize fund and think that all European athletes are richer. The truth is different. €1,000 for eighth place, after taxes and expenses, might cover one month of living costs for a professional athlete. I have watched too many athletes walk through the corridor outside the changing room. Each one is a universe. But not every universe is illuminated by prize money. The paradox is that the European Championships, created to celebrate the spirit of sport, is now running a prize-money arms race with its own parent body. World Athletics, the global governing body, promotes its Ultimate Championship as the richest prize pot in the history of the sport. European Athletics calls its £3 million a record. Both are right, but both are talking about money, not about running, jumping and throwing. This raises a question: is athletics turning itself into an entertainment market, where an athlete's value is measured by broadcast rates rather than by the human value of effort? New media does not kill stories; it makes us lose ourselves in virtual applause and forget the real heartbeat. On social media, people will share the £3 million figure as proof of progress. But I, who have stood on the sidelines for three decades, want to ask: how many of those sharing it have ever stood on the starting line, feeling their heart pound in the two minutes before the gun? I also want to ask another question: does a bigger prize fund improve the competitive quality of the event? There is no evidence that it does. A larger fund does not mean athletes run faster, jump higher or throw farther. Performance is determined by training systems, training conditions, sports science and the talent pool, not by the money given to finishers. In an age of data explosion, I still trust eyes, ears, and a heart that cannot lie. The £3 million figure speaks of European Athletics' commercial ambition, not of the speed of the runners' legs. What I hope most for Silesia 2028 is a fairer competition, rather than a richer one. Fairness between events, fairness between nations, and fairness for athletes without big names who still dedicate their lives to the track. The 800m final of that year is not on the results board; it lives in the way that woman tied her laces before stepping out. If this new model helps some young woman not to cry over imposed tactics, but to cry only with joy at running true to her instinct, then those €3.5 million will have been worth it. If not, it is just a pretty number decorating an end-of-year press release.