Olympic track and field seeing dollar signs with splashy cash infusions into the sport

BY EDDIE PELLS AND PAT GRAHAM

EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — One aspiring Olympian is taking a break from his day job at the deli section while he makes his run for Paris. Another athlete worked as a nanny, but when she left to focus on running at the Games, the family understood.

When these runners and hurdlers learned they would be racing for a big, fat first-prize check worth $50,000 to go with the gold medal at this summer’s Olympics, they were, understandably, excited.

“That’d be big,” American hurdler Dylan Beard said this week at U.S. track and field trials, while taking a break from his job at the Walmart Supercenter in Wake Forest, North Carolina. “I mean, I wouldn’t even know what to do with that much money.”

In a move that many in track — and the Olympic world, in general — felt was long overdue, World Athletics,