Silver lining: Olyslagers' runner-up finish brings unexpected reward

BUDAPEST, Sept 12 - Australian high jumper Nicola Olyslagers thought she had endured one of the more frustrating nights of her glittering career on Friday but it turned out to be the most lucrative.

The world champion posted 1.95 metres in the women's high jump at the inaugural World Athletics Ultimate Championship, struggling with her approach, while Ukraine's Olympic champion Yaroslava Mahuchikh cleared 1.99m to claim the title.

Yet while Olyslagers missed out on becoming athletics' first "Ultimate" high jump champion on a chilly evening, the 29-year-old's second-place finish still delivered a career-best payday.

When reporters informed her runners-up would pocket $75,000, the Australian's disappointment quickly gave way to delight.

"What? Really? I genuinely thought it was just first prize got the 150k and second was like 10,000," Olyslagers told reporters. "You are the bearer of good news. That's fantastic."

The cheque is worth $5,000 more than she earned for winning the world title last year.

The surprise windfall was exactly the sort of moment World Athletics hoped to create when it launched the Ultimate Championship, a compact, television-friendly event with a record $10 million prize fund, the richest purse ever in track & field.

Winners collect $150,000, while the runners-up get $75,000 and third-place finishers pocket $40,000, with athletes paid throughout the placings, a big shift for a sport that has long lagged behind others like tennis and golf in financial rewards.

The sums have become a talking point around Budapest.

Britain's Success Eduan earned $6,000 for helping her team finish third in the mixed 4x100 relay and already knows where some of the money could go -- to pay off her student loans.

"Absolutely (the cash prize helps)," she said. But it wasn't really about the prize fund. It was more about the team. This event has been really, really good."

The trainee midwife still has four babies to deliver next week before completing her degree at Salford University.

British 1,500m runner Georgia Hunter Bell acknowledged the stakes had added an extra layer of excitement to the weekend.

"You know $150,000, that means this is one you want to win so that's an added element," said Hunter Bell, who will race in the women's 1,500m final on Saturday.

"I think mine and my husband's future home is going to look a bit different depending on how it goes here, which is really fun."

Even with the championship's record-breaking purse, athletics still has some catching up to do compared with the biggest money-spinning sports.

Players who lost in the first round of the U.S. Open singles draw, for instance, earned $140,000.

Still, for athletes more accustomed to chasing titles than riches, World Athletics' new event has provided a rare chance to dream about both.

For Olyslagers, who arrived in the mixed zone believing she had missed out on a golden opportunity, the night's biggest leap may have come after the competition ended, when she discovered just how much the silver was worth. REUTERS