Athletics "will get a lower share of Olympic revenues in the future" after the IOC on Wednesday "recalculated the federations' revenues according to their contribution to the Games," according to Karolos Grohmann of REUTERS. The 26 sports federations at the London 2012 Olympics divided up $519M based on their IOC ranking, with athletics, the flagship sport of the Games, "expected to receive around" $47M as the only one in the top-earning Group A. However, the new plan for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games revenue distribution "has five categories of sports instead of four, with athletics no longer enjoying all of the Group A pot." Like athletics, it was bad news for equestrian, handball, field hockey and modern pentathlon, "who dropped a level and will now be getting less." But table tennis, badminton, boxing, judo, archery, shooting and weightlifting "are expected to benefit from the recalculation." For int'l athletics federation (IAAF) President Lamine Diack, the reduced share "did not change his sport's status within the Games." Diack said, "We are the only universal sport in the Games. I have no problem with that. Gymnastics and swimming are nice sports. But why was there an Olympic stadium in London?" (REUTERS, 5/29).
