Briton Kurts Adams Rozentals, promise of the Slalom Canoeing, was suspended by the Paddle UK Federation after creating an account on the Onlyfans site, known as adult content.
The decision dismissed the athlete from the entity’s elite program, even after confirmation, by the end of 2024, of his stay among those selected for the Olympic cycle to Los Angeles-2028.
Rozatents, who dreams of disputing the, justified his presence on the platform as a way to play career costs.
“I have published videos designed to be provocative on Instagram, to generate interactions with my spicy content page on Onlyfans to fund my dream of going to the Olympic Games,” he told the BBC Sport. It has accumulated almost 120 thousand euros (about R $ 772 thousand) with the signatures.
In 2023, Rozatents was runner-up under-23 in and last year won the bronze in the European Championship. The inclusion in Paddle UK’s World Class program guaranteed 19 thousand euros per season (about R $ 122,000), considered insufficient by the athlete to cover rent, food and travel expenses.
“I don’t know how much would be the ideal, but 16 thousand pounds [19 mil euros] They are not enough, especially for those who train in London. I never managed to move from financial difficulties and made the round trip of the East Midlands region, ”he explained.
He also recalled the difficulties he lives with with his family.
“My mother worked 90 hours a week for years. I want her to have a quiet life, while I give everything for the sport. But you can’t think of rent and try to compete at the best level at the same time,” he said.
Rozatents said he received the news of the telephone suspension about a month ago. “I was paralyzed. I couldn’t believe it. This is my life, it’s all I do. I want to be a professional athlete and follow my Olympic dream,” he said.
Paddle UK has classified the suspension as “provisional” and “neutral” to protect athletes, employees and volunteers in the face of the nature of the complaint. The disciplinary code of the entity provides that “indecent or offensive behaviors on social networks” may lead to the exclusion of athletes from the elite program.
For Rozators, the future with the federation is undefined. “Unless something changes in the way athletes are paid, I don’t see how to continue with Paddle UK,” he said.
The case remembers that of Briton Jack Laugher, an Olympic medalist in ornamental jumps, who also created an onlyfans account in 2024. Champion in Rio-2016 and medalist in Tokyo-2020 and Paris-2024, Laugher justified the decision by saying that the 32,000 euros per year (about $ 205,000) he received as an elite athlete were not Sufficient: “It’s a good salary to live, but it is far from what you imagine as a sportsman’s remuneration.”
