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Comment by dylan604 | Hacker News Reader

Have you never heard of a trust before? They have all sorts of stipulations depending on what the person creating the trust wants. It's very common for a kid to only get access to their trust when they turn 18 with more access granted at other milestones. It also sounds like a free life insurance policy. Those also only pay out when someone dies.

This doesn't sound macabre at all to me. Sounds more like loophole finding to avoid directly paying the athletes to allow them to keep their amateur status to me.

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Yes, I've heard of all of those things, but never used in a way to motive the person who is currently alive.

A trust that says you don't get access to the rest unless you graduate college isn't meant as motivation? Allowing extra payout for a house only if married? People have put all sorts of limitations on trusts specifically as motivation.

> A trust that says you don't get access to the rest unless you graduate college isn't meant as motivation?

No, a trust that is setup to give your family money when you die, in order to serve as motivation for you to "break through new frontiers of excellence"

This isn't motivation though. This is a reward for achieving a place on the Olympic team. If this does not continue as a thing past the upcoming Olympics, athletes will still train in hopes of qualifying for the next team. They won't be doing it because this might be available to them. If they qualify, this will just be a bonus.

> This is a reward for achieving a place on the Olympic team.

Well, that makes it seem like this isn't a donation then at all, if you need to "achieve a place on the Olympic team"? I thought this was given for people to be able to better reach that, not as a "reward".

This is a "prize" it seems to me, not a "donation".

It really seems like you're intentionally trying to strain definition of words. What is a prize if not a reward?

Sure, prize and award is the same, you're missing my point.

The title right now is "Ross Stevens Donates $100M to Pay Every US Olympian and Paralympian $200k", while after our conversation, it's pretty clear that this isn't a donation at all, it's a prize/reward for doing something specific. If you don't do that thing, you (and your family once you die) don't get the prize/reward.

Not only is the whole "once you die" part really strange way of trying to "reward" people, it isn't even a "donation" which the article seems to want you to believe.

Amateur status hasn’t been relevant to the Olympics in quite a while.

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