Medal cash-in Coe's $50,000 prize money is a blow to what's left of the Olympic spirit

W'e were told last week how World Athletics is leading the way in modernising the Olympics, showing all the other sports how behind the times they are and how much the international athletics federation is on the side of its athletes. Sebastian Coe, chair of World Athletics, announced that $50,000 (£40,000) prize money will be given to Olympic gold medallists in track and field events in Paris, proudly returning the sport's commercial gains back to the athletes and boldly facing up to the facts of modern sport.

- Cath Bishop

I'm all for moving sport forward, increasing its positive social impact, empowering and valuing our athletes more, so I'm keen to consider the benefits. To do that we should take a step back to consider what the Olympics is about. Brilliant athletic performance, a demonstration of global human capability driven by a sporting philosophy based on wholesome values (albeit somewhat tarnished over time).

Will a cash prize improve the performance we see at the Olympics? I don't think so. To suggest otherwise would insult any Olympian and muddy the reality that what gets you out of bed on a cold, wintry morning to train three times that day is certainly not the possibility of a cash prize. Will more athletes favour the Olympics over the Diamond League now? Hard to see this amount as game-changing in that regard.

And it's surely an unwinnable race, bribing athletes to compete at the Olympics who don't value it, all the while missing playing to the strengths of the Olympics as different and of a much higher status than winning the Diamond League which no one remembers.