Alexis Ohanian will be dishing out a whopping $60,000 to Gabby Thomas. The US 200m sprinter ran a blitzkrieg time of 21.83s to clinch the gold medal in Paris. Coming into the event, Thomas was up against Julian Alfred of Saint Lucia. While Alfred dominated the 100m discipline, she fell short by quite some time as her timing of 22.08s was overshadowed by the brilliance of Gabby Thomas. And with that win, Thomas has secured herself a huge prize of $60,000. 

Well, at a time when the issue of athletes’ underpayment is wreaking havoc, such a reward is a welcome sign. However, the money will not be coming from any registered sporting organization but from the business tycoon and co-founder of Reddit.inc, Alexis Ohanian. Ohanian, who will be hosting a private athletic meet in September named ‘Athlos’, promised to pay a bounty of $60,000 each to the 26 women athletes of Athlos who were also competing in Paris. But there was a catch: they had to win the gold medal to clinch the prize. And Gabby Thomas did just that. Soon after her historic victory, Ohanian took to her X account and acknowledged his promise by saying, “And I owe her $60K for that Gold Medal Bounty🥇 ” 

Not only the prize money, but Alexis Ohanian seemed to be mighty pleased with Gabby Thomas. Ushering the responsibility of ‘spearheading’ the Athlos event in September, Ohanian highlighted several other aspects of Thomas’s life. These included ‘Harvard grad, Healthcare champion, World-class sprinter, Gold medal winner.’ Ohanian went on to detail her accolades one by one in his posts. He highlighted the fact that Thomas clocked 21.61s to become a national champion in the 2021 season. 

Continuing his praises for Gabby Thomas, Ohanian said how she has now won 3 Olympic medals in total—a bronze and silver in Tokyo and a gold in Paris. Terming her as the ‘world’s fastest epidemiologist’ Ohanian detailed that Gabby Thomas pursued a master’s in epidemiology from the University of Texas and also took up the role of the hypertension program director at an Austin clinic. 

While Ohanian has not yet revealed the identities of all 26 female athletes, it will be interesting to see if anyone else from that list can clinch a gold medal in Paris. Meanwhile, the issue of athletes not getting paid has come to the forefront recently, and multiple measures are being taken to ensure optimum financial security for the athletes. 

Alexis Ohanian looks to change athletics with Athlos

While the Olympics do provide the medal winners with a token amount of monetary reward, that is often not enough to sustain their expenses. In a shocking revelation from a recent survey, it was found that the likes of Simone Biles did not get a salary for competing in events. Taking a step towards betterment, the World Athletics Organization announced a prize pool of $2.4 million for track and field athletes. Every gold medal winner in each track and field event will be awarded $50,000. President Sebastian Coe has stated that he will look to further expand the reward program in the future. 

Alexis Ohanian, too, is looking towards the welfare of women’s sports. Together with the 776 Invitational, Ohanian has initiated a women’s exclusive track and field event, ‘Athlon’ in September. The winners will get $60,000 as a cash prize. Thus, with the possibility of a new dawn in track and field, it remains to be seen what happens next.