McEvoy says lack of bonus for setting new world record is 'ludicrous'
· Yahoo Sports
Australian swimming star Cameron McEvoy has decried the lack of prize money to go with breaking a world record that stood for over 16 years as "ludicrous."
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On Friday, McEvoy clocked 20.88 seconds in the 50 metre freestyle at the China Open, breaking a world record set by Brazilian César Cielo wearing a now-banned polyurethane suit by 0.03 seconds.
"It's crazy to think that to get a world record without a suit, and without any performance-enhancing drugs, so as a clean athlete, the bonus is zero dollars," McEvoy, who is the 2024 Olympic champion and world title holder in the event, said on Wednesday.
"Whereas, if I went an easier route, [and] I put a suit on which can easily drop half a second, then there's the performance-enhancing drug side of things, which I've no idea what happens there, but I'm sure it's an improvement, you get not only a million US dollar [in] bonus ... but there's also 250,000 US dollar prize money for first place, which you would get on top of the world record," McEvoy said.
The champion referred to the much-criticized Enhanced Games, due to debut in May, where competitors will try to set world records with the aid of performance-enhancing drugs.
According to organizers, the winner of each individual event will win $250,000, while a $1 million reward is on the table for anyone setting a new world records in the 50m freestyle swimming and the 100m athletics events.
World Aquatics offers monetary rewards for setting new world records at world championships and World Cup meets, though a much lower amount than that promised by Enhanced Games organizers. Since the China Open is not organized by World Aquatics, there was no prize money for McEvoy's historic achievement.
"I'm dumbfounded in terms of the stark contrast that exists currently in the landscape of sport and swimming," McEvoy continued, saying it was "pretty ludicrous" and "a bit unfortunate" that the value placed on achieving something like he did, cleanly, was deemed to be "worth nothing" on a monetary level.
Cielo's clocked his 21.91 in December 2009, during a two-year span when swimmers set an avalanche of records by competing in water-repellent suits, which have since been banned.