Earning 250 euros in a year does not sound like an ideal situation, and of course it is not, but it is the reality for Ruth Astle. The top British athlete earned as much as 203 pounds in 2024, which translates to just under 250 euros. She arrives at that amount when she subtracts her expenses from her income over last year’s season.
Astle had a very difficult season – mainly due to injury – in which she only raced two events and a third place at Ironman Vitoria Gasteiz turned out to be the highlight – but at a time when only a handful of triathletes earn huge amounts of prize money, the numbers are of course painful. Astle gives an open and honest look into her finances on YouTube (see bottom of article, ed.), showing that this is true for a large number of pro athletes. Were it not for the fact that Astle fortunately has other sources of income, the athlete would otherwise only have earned ‘about enough for food for about a month’.
Astle neatly lists the expenses she incurred in 2024. For example, she spent almost 4,600 pounds on coaching, over 1,600 pounds on the gym, another over 2,300 pounds on the pool and a sloppy 3,750 pounds on the physio. Biggest expense was traveling (23,659 pounds), but money was also spent on bike parts (3726 pounds), content (3455 pounds) and medical care (4217 pounds). Other expenses included her race license (1248 pounds) and maintenance of her bike (630 pounds). In all, Astle spent £50,075.50 to live as a pro.
All the more poignant, then, that with a fixed sponsorship income of £32,045, prize money of £6,833, podium bonus of £2,685, YouTube income of £2,627 and gear sales (£6086), Astle earned a total of £50,277, leaving £203 at the bottom line. “it’s a good job I have other incomes and savings. I potentially have some difficult decisions to make in terms of how I set up next year. A lot of my sponsorship deals were over two years, with a lot of them coming up for renegotiation – they are not going well.”
