American high jump star Shelby McEwen won a silver medal after he and New Zealand’s Hamish Kerr turned down the opportunity to share a joint Olympic gold medal.
The high jump event at the Olympics is always tightly contested, with Kerr and McEwen both tied at 2.36 metres in the final in Paris.
They had earlier watched as other competitors fell by the wayside, with Qatar’s Mutaz Barsham doing enough for the bronze but failing to clear the 2.36 bar.
Italy’s Gianmarco Tamberi, meanwhile, finished 11th with a jump of 2.22 – but for the 32-year-old just to be competing in the final was incredible enough after he spent the early part of the day in hospital due to abdominal pain.
Some may remember how Tamberi and Barsham both cleared 2.37 at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, but both agreed to share the gold medal instead of opting for the jump off. The moment was praised as one of the highlights of the Games.
This time around, McEwen and Kerr were faced with the same decision – but ended up agreeing on a different outcome.
The decision had to be taken as the pair jumped 2.36 at their first attempt, but then failed all three attempts at the increased 2.38.
But after Kerr missed his final attempt at 2.38, he had a brief exchange with McEwen before the pair agreed to have a jump-off.
In the jump-off, athletes are given another opportunity to jump their previous missed height, before the bar then continues to lower until an athlete wins.
Both missed 2.36 to provide added drama, before Kerr was able to clear 2.34 and secure the gold medal ahead of McEwen.
Despite losing out on the gold, it was still an incredible outcome for McEwen, who finished 11th in the Tokyo final and and set a personal best jump this time around.
The decision to go for the jump-off received mixed reactions on social media, although several people praised the principle of only one gold medal winner. McEwen finished 12th in Tokyo, while Kerr was 10th.
In addition, the opportunity to take a jump-off has been accepted before, and Qatar’s Barsham said earlier this year that a sharing of the gold medal in the event would likely never happen again.
He said: “To be honest, it will never happen again. That moment, we’ll never share that again.
“It was a one-time thing. Coming back from injuries and a dark place, I wanted to do something different, something with a different meaning.”
The final outcome will increase the drama in the final medal table standings, with China currently leading the US by a single gold heading into the final day of the Games.
If they finish level, the US will take top spot by virtue of having comfortably more silver medals, and medals overall, than their closest rivals.
Simone Biles is set to leave France with four Olympic medals, having won three gold and one silver in this year’s competition, but she won’t be significantly richer for it.
Biles won gold in the Women’s Artistic Individual All-Around, Women’s Artistic Individual All-Around, and the Women’s Vault last week. She won silver in the Women’s Floor event on Monday.
According to Forbes, Americans at the Olympics will receive $37,500 for each gold medal won and $22,500 for silver, while bronze medalists will get $15,000. The superstar gymnast is due a total of $135,000 based on Team USA’s payout system, which is considerably less than the $750,000 signing bonus her husband, Jonathan Owens, got paid upon inking his last NFL contract.
It appears fans expected her to make a lot more, and they could be forgiven for harboring the notion given how lavishly American athletes get paid.
“The Olympics makes billions of dollars every four years, name a bigger scam, I’ll wait!” one fan raged.
“Do you know the Olympics pays athletes nothing?” another asked.
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“The best athletes in the world! NOTHING!” another declared.
“I was just reading about Olympian salaries and it’s honestly disgusting that the Olympics don’t pay more,” someone else wrote.
I was just reading about olympians salaries and it’s honestly disgusting that the Olympics don’t pay more….. it seems like if you’re not winning medals you get no money
“It’s shameful,” another comment read.
Simone Biles Is Still Worth Millions
Despite making what many consider to be a meager sum from her exploits at the games, Simone Biles has a net worth of $25 million, per Celebritynetworth.com.
Like most Olympic athletes, Biles makes most of her money through brand endorsements and is believed to have made around $20 million between 2019 and 2021.
Forbes notes that the 27-year-old brought in $7.1 million in 2023, with $7 million coming from endorsements and the rest from gymnastics. She was the 14th highest-paid female athlete last year.
