Olympic gold winner and Argentine judoka Paula Pareto said she would be donating her state coaching stipend to help other Argentine athletes who are financially struggling. She made her remarks after the reduction of 18 judokas from Argentina’s budget-conscious government to four.
As the Paris Olympics draw near, Argentina’s elite athletes are growing anxious about their prospects due to President Javier Milei’s libertarian government’s efforts to slash costs. ‘When you are an athlete, results are demanded of you, but each time they give you a little less’, Pareto said.
ENARD, the group that helps high-performance athletes, had its budget stuck at levels from 2023, even though prices go up by almost 300% every year. This surprised many sports fans including Paris Olympics betting fans.
‘In a country like Argentina today, where people don’t eat, we are aware that there are other priorities’, said ENARD director Diogenes de Urquiza. He also mentioned that the country was giving most of its funds to athletes who had qualified for Paris or who were going to qualify.
Julio Garro, the Undersecretary of Sports, wrote on X (former Twitter) that the government’s efforts were overshadowed and minimised by Pareto’s comments. Around 1,200 elite Argentine athletes and coaches earn stipends of $350 monthly.
This is a small sum compared to the lavish salaries of Argentina’s top footballers, which is over $255 per hour, just a little higher than the federal minimum wage. ‘We live on that’, Macarena Ceballos, an Argentine swimmer who dreams of a ‘real state policy’ for athletes, said.
Ceballos was named best swimmer in South America in 2023 and was a top choice for bettors on many Olympics betting sites. Amidst her achievement, she had a tough time preparing for the Olympics in the cold Argentine winter due to a broken pool heater. She said that every winter, the situation is the same.
With a ‘chainsaw’ approach to budget cuts, Argentina’s president left the film and culture industry reeling and soup kitchens with empty cupboards since he took power. As part of his efforts to reverse decades of economic stagnation, Milei removed around 10,000 government seats and halved his cabinet.
Walter Perez, a 2008 Beijing Olympic gold medalist, asserts that the government is doing its best to maintain support for those who have qualified for the Paris Games. However, he also argues that after the Paris Olympics, sports in Argentina are not over. Athletes still struggle to find ways to get more funding for all sports.
Why are athletes low-funded?
The main reason why some athletes are low-funded varies greatly depending on the sport, level of competition, and national context. Some of the common reasons why include:
- Lack of commercial appeal → Sports and athletes in countries that don’t have a large fan base or media coverage tend to receive less sponsorship and broadcast revenue.
- Gender inequity → Women’s sports have been underfunded compared to men’s sports, due to societal biases and imbalances in commercial interest and viewership.
- Lack of profit → Many Olympic and amateur sports simply do not generate enough revenue to be self-sustaining. This makes them rely on external funding sources that are insufficient.
Cooling tech to help Paris Olympics athletes
Paris will host the 2024 Olympic Games and forecasters predict scorching summer temperatures for the event. In summer 2023, temperatures across Europe reached record highs. According to France’s national weather service, summer 2024 will also be higher than normal.
This kind of weather makes it even harder to compete in sports. It will be crucial for the Olympic athletes to keep an eye on their body temperatures as they train, rest, and fight.
The rooms where the athletes will stay during the event will also not have air conditioning. ‘It can be very hot and miserable in Paris, as it was in Tokyo during the last Olympics’, Craig Heller said, an expert on how the body keeps its temperature steady.
He also said that temperature rise has a lot of undesirable effects on function. In turn, Heller and other academics at the institution examined how the body regulates its temperature. Given the college’s closeness to Silicon Valley, the tech industry was able to level the playing field.
Blood-cooling tech emerges
Heller was a co-inventor of the glove-like gadget known as CoolMitt. This aids in releasing heat and lowering blood temperature, allowing the athlete’s heart and muscles to get the cool blood again.
It’s made to be used during game timeouts, between sets and reps at the gym, or any other short break during training or a game. ‘If you take heat out of the core of the body, that prevents heat from building up in the active muscles, and they keep on working’, Heller stated.
Show your support for the Paris Olympics by attending the games or betting on your favourite teams on the best Olympics betting sites. This will help the athletes be recognised and urge the development of helpful techs that improve athletes’ training and performance.
