Athletics: Fixing the price of gold

ATHLETES want prize money at next year's World Championships in Stuttgart. They may ask for dollars 100,000 (pounds 60,000) for a gold medal down to dollars 5,000 for eighth place.

Tom Jennings, president of the newly formed International Association of Athletics Representatives, meets David Greiffinger, lawyer for Carl Lewis's Santa Monica Track Club, this week to draft proposals, which will be put to other agents when they meet Grand Prix organisers on 12 October.

'We estimate at between dollars 7-8m (pounds 4-4 1/2 m) as the amount the IAAF (International Amateur Athletic Federation) will have to pay athletes,' Jennings said.

Primo Nebiolo, the IAAF president, said in Havana at the World Cup last week that he supported the principle of rewards for athletes but would not give any details.