World Athletics and the International Athletics Foundation (IAF) announced that 193 athletes from 58 member federations will be offered one-time grants of $3000 through an Athlete Welfare Fund announced in April to help support professional athletes experiencing financial hardship due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Initially totalling $500,000 when its creation was announced on 28 April, generous contributions since have made $600,000 ultimately available to athletes in need.
The IAF received 261 eligible applications by the 31 May deadline. These applications were evaluated by the IAF to ensure they met the eligibility criteria, under the oversight of an expert working group, chaired by World Athletics President Sebastian Coe.
To be eligible athletes had to be qualified for selection for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, had to be able to demonstrate a justifiable welfare need through significant loss of income in 2020 compared to 2019, and must never have had an anti-doping violation.
Athletes ranked in the top six on the World Rankings, those who finished in the top six in any Gold Label Road race in 2019, and those who earned more than $6000 in prize money from the 2019 Diamond League were not eligible to apply in order to help focus support to those most in need.
The Foundation expects to begin making payments to athletes as early as the end of this week, World Athletics reported.
Almost 200 athletes offered grants from Athlete Welfare Fund
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