Armand Duplantis is now pleading.
He wants to change the Olympic rules – to help the athletes who are having a tough time financially.
– It’s terrible, says Mondo.
Armand Duplantis is the best pole vaulter of all time, and every time there is a competition or a major championship, he is a huge favorite. He is reigning world champion, Olympic champion, Diamond League champion – and everything points to the fact that it will be that way for many years to come.
Dismal numbers
Armand Duplanits is not only one of the biggest names in athletics, he is also one of the sport’s most well-paid. Duplantis has lucrative sponsorship deals that make him a multi-millionaire, and the sum is steadily increasing as a result of world record bonuses that are constantly being collected. But not everyone who competes in the Olympics is equally lucky.
According to a survey produced by the Swedish Olympic Committee, which Aftonbladet reports on, it appears that 44 percent of all Swedish Olympic participants would have lived below the subsistence minimum, if it were not for the fact that they received the Swedish Olympic Committee’s own scholarship, which provides 6,000-12,000 kroner in the month. The survey also showed that one in seven active people was below the limit despite the scholarship.
Duplanti’s plea
It is something that Armand Duplantis is saddened by. Despite the fact that he is, to say the least, well off financially, he suffers with everyone who is having a tough time.
– It is terrible that boys and girls at Olympic level have to suffer because of the economy. Fortunately, I avoid that stress, but many pole vaulters in the elite lose a lot of focus in their training because they have to arrange financing, he tells the evening newspaper.
And that leads Armand Duplantis to plead for change. In the Olympics there is no prize money, and it is also forbidden to have personal sponsors. That’s how it’s always been, but Duplantis would like to see that change.
– If you achieve your life’s goal and compete in the Olympics, you still can’t make money from it, apart from the support you get from your Olympic Committee. It would be better if everyone who reached that level somehow got to wear their own sponsor name, because nowhere else or at any time are you more exposed than there and then, he says.
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