Silesia 2028 offers record €3.5m prize pot with gold worth €30,000
Europe's athletes will compete for a record €3.5 million at the 2028 European Athletics Championships in Silesia, Poland, European Athletics has announced. The fund, worth about £3 million, will pay out across all 50 events.
Gold medallists will earn €30,000 (£25,720). Silver medallists will receive €15,000 (£12,860) and bronze medallists €10,000 (£8,573), BBC Sport reported. The money runs deep. Athletes finishing fourth to eighth will collect €5,000, €4,000, €3,000, €2,000 and €1,000 respectively.
That is seven times more than before. The previous championships in Birmingham carried a total pot of €500,000 (£428,000). The system was different too. In Birmingham the money was split between the top 10 performances across 10 categories, ranked by World Athletics scoring tables, the points system that allows a shot put to be compared with a sprint.
Birmingham also offered a €50,000 'Gold Crown' bonus. None of Great Britain and Northern Ireland's nine gold-medal performances earned it, despite the team topping the table with 19 medals in total.
Timing adds to the interest. Silesia 2028 will take place in early June, starting six weeks before the Los Angeles Olympics. For athletes, it is a championship in its own right and a hard form test before an Olympic summer. Selection races, late injuries and tired legs all come into play in that short window.
The announcement follows a wider push on prize money in the sport. World Athletics put up a $10 million (£7.4 million) pot for its new three-day Ultimate Championship in Budapest, where each individual winner received $150,000 (£110,000).
What makes this stand out is the breadth. Silesia will reward finals all the way to eighth place, not only the podium. For fans, this means more to race for in every lane and every field event, from first gun to last throw.
