Ultimate Championship’s $10m is great reward for athletes – I wish it was around in my day

Like many people I’m still getting my head around the purpose or even need for the new World Athletics Ultimate Championship, which is taking place in Budapest this weekend. But my first take on it is that if this event had been around in my day, then I’d have been delighted to take part, 100 per cent.With a record prize purse of $10 million, including $150,000 for each individual “ultimate champion”, it’s set up as a big windfall for all the athletes who are invited. It’s also being billed as “the best of the best”, and the majority of Olympic and World champions will be there, except for those who are injured or whose events aren’t part of the 13 individual events for men and women. There are no championship medals up for grabs, only the winner’s trophy, but every athlete will pocket something. The $75,000 for second place is still more than the $70,000 that all the gold medal winners got at the World Championships in Tokyo last year. Some athletes will be attempting a double this weekend, so could come away with $300,000 – far more than most athletes will earn in their entire career. Still, I don’t think any athlete is thinking about this as any sort of World Championships, or anything even close. I don’t think too many athletes will be peaking for it either, not at this late stage in the season, with the likes of the European Championships and the Diamond League final already done and dusted.READ MOREIf anything, I think most athletes are just hanging on to whatever form they can, knowing this could be a nice pay-day if they have managed to keep themselves together, both mentally and physically, at the tail end of what has already been a very long season. For most athletes, the Diamond League final has always the been a sort of season finale. The Ultimate Championship is just a week later, so there’s no great reason why they can’t still be close to their best. But it’s five months since the first of the Diamond League events in Shanghai, and for some athletes the season started with the Continental Tour meetings in New Zealand and Australia back in January.Some athletes who probably thought they wouldn’t get an invite were only called up in the last week or so, after the final rankings, or after some athletes ahead of them had to withdraw for different reasons. But I don’t see why any athlete wouldn’t want to be in Budapest this weekend.The three evening sessions, Friday to Sunday, each of only three hours, are also designed to draw in a younger TV audience. Still, World Athletics haven’t avoided some controversy by excluding events such as the shot put and discus for men and women, the women’s hammer and men’s triple jump, and the steeplechases.Sharlene Mawdsley and Mercy Adongo Oketch of Team Kenya in the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, Japan. Photograph: Hannah Peters/Getty Images Maybe the 13 selected events, plus mixed relays, are seen as the ultimate events, or the most appealing – especially when World Athletics are trying to draw in a younger audience. But if they are labelling this as the Ultimate Championship, while also excluding some Olympic and World champions, they may want to look at that again, even if that means spreading the money around a little more.To me, it’s also a bit of a contradiction to have the biggest event at the very end of the season, then nothing else afterwards. If athletes are peaking for these events, it’s likely they’ll still have a good base of fitness to do other races.[ Ultimate Championship: What Irish athletes are competing in new $10m event?Opens in new window ]Like Tokyo last year, the 2027 World Championships in Beijing next summer are very late in the season, not starting until September 10th. Whereas the 2028 Olympics in LA are quite early, starting on July 14th, with the athletics now taking place in the first week. So, if there is to be another Ultimate Championship, in 2028, you might have some cases where if athletes aren’t quite ready for the Olympics, they may decide not to go, waiting until the pay-day of the Ultimate Championship instead. That could end up diluting the Olympics a small bit.For the three Irish athletes invited to Budapest this weekend it’s also a good opportunity to get something more out of their season. Mark English gave up his 800m place in the Diamond League final last weekend to focus solely on the Ultimate Championship, returning to his altitude training base in Sierra Nevada in Spain, and will race his semi-final on Saturday, just over four weeks after winning the European title in Budapest. If English can make Sunday’s final, he’s on for the biggest pay-day of his career. Sharlene Mawdsley was also thrown a lifeline after her early season form that pushed her up the rankings over 400m. A hamstring injury sustained at the National Championships stalled her racing until last Tuesday, where she made a winning return in Italy, and she’s also in bonus territory this weekend.Rhasidat Adeleke with her European 200m silver medal in Birmingham. Photograph: Sona Maleterova/Getty Images After qualifying late for the 200m at European Championships, Rhasidat Adeleke then came home with a silver medal, and with that got the bonus of a call-up this weekend. If she can make her final on Sunday that will provide another valuable test against the world’s best, and provide another marker as she heads back into winter training, and what event she needs to focus on for 2027. It also seems to me that part of the original motivation for the Ultimate Championship was in reaction to last year’s Grand Slam Track, and also the all-women Athlos meetings, which significantly upped the prize money on offer. Grand Slam Track excluded all field events, and ended up going bankrupt, while Athlos have also dropped their New York meeting next month because that was considered just too late in the season. Once they started paying athletes a lot more money, World Athletics had to be seen to do something similar, and the Ultimate Championship is just one way of doing that. As with all new sporting events, there will no doubt be some areas that will need tweaking and fine-tuning for future editions, but already that record $10 million prize pot is the most positive growth we have seen in the sport in many years. I just wish it was around in my day