Your annual TV Licence payment generally covers four key factors related to watching, recording, and downloading content
The price of a TV Licence increased last year (stock image)(Image: Newton Daly via Getty Images)
The price of a TV Licence rose for many in 2025, with the Government increasing the price to £174.50 last April. This annual payment is generally mandatory for any households or businesses that watch live TV or access BBCiPlayer.
However, you may be wondering what rules apply to people who exclusively watch DVDs or play games on their TV. Guidance on this matter is summarised on the official TV Licensing website, along with the answers to other frequently asked questions.
“You don’t need a TV Licence if you only use your TV for gaming or DVDs,” the website explains. “That’s as long as you never watch TV channels on any TV service, watch live TV on streaming services, or use BBC iPlayer.”
Two years ago, the Secretary of State announced a 2.9% increase in the licence fee, starting from April 1, 2025, in line with the annual CPI inflation. This resulted in a daily rise of just over 1p, and is only the second fee increase since April 1, 2021.
While standard coloured licences now cost £174.50 annually, black-and-white licences cost £58.50 per year. Future licence fee increases will be tied to CPI inflation over the next four years, ending in 2027. From April 2026, the fee will increase again by £5.50 to £180.
Official TV licensing guidance adds: “You could be prosecuted if we find that you have been watching, recording or downloading programmes illegally. The maximum penalty is a £1,000 fine plus any legal costs and/or compensation you may be ordered to pay.”
Certain people are eligible for discounted TV Licences, provided they meet specific criteria. Older adults claiming Pension Credit may also qualify for a completely free TV Licence if they are over 75 and/or living with a partner who receives the benefit.
Pension Credit is different to the State Pension. Pension Credit is a means-tested benefit for people over State Pension age on a low income, boosting weekly income to £227.10 if you’re single or £346.60 with a partner.
Those claiming Pension Credit can apply for a free TV Licence when they turn 74, but will still need to pay until the end of the month before their 75th birthday. After this point, they will be covered by the free licence.
This covers watching, recording, and downloading on any device.
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Former AC Milan and Sweden footballer Zlatan Ibrahimovic opens the 2026 Winter Olympic Games for the BBC, as he explains what it takes to become “a champion in Milan.”
Follow the Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics across the BBC from Friday, 6 February.
Right before the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games, relay participants passed the torch for the final few times in central Milan. The flame began its journey across Italy in December, starting in Rome and travelling through all 110 Italian provinces.
Italy has foiled “Russian origin” cyber-attacks targeting the Winter Olympics, says Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani.
He said websites linked to the Games, hotels in host town Cortina d’Ampezzo and foreign ministry facilities, including an embassy in Washington, were targeted.
Cortina d’Ampezzo, one of five host clusters for the Olympics, will stage alpine skiing, biathlon, curling, and sliding events.
“We prevented a series of cyber-attacks against foreign ministry sites. These are actions of Russian origin,” said Tajani.
The Games officially begin on Friday, although the first action got under way on Wednesday.
Darius Garland could not have been more in transition than he was Wednesday night on his first day with his new team.
Officially traded earlier in the day from the Cleveland Cavaliers to the Clippers for 11-time All-Star James Harden, Garland talked about his upheaval during halftime of Wednesday’s game between his current and former teams, a game the Cavaliers won, 124-91.
“I knew about it. It wasn’t a shock, though,” the two-time All-Star said. “It’s the business of basketball. Cleveland was great to me and my family, and I have respect for all of those guys over there. … Seven years was a really long time, and it was great. I’m glad I’m here now. The next chapter in my book.”
Garland has been out since Jan. 16 with a big toe sprain on his right foot, and the Clippers have no timetable for his debut. But coach Tyronn Lue expects to implement a new game plan once the 26-year-old point guard is on the floor. Garland said he’s ready to go and waiting for the OK to play.
“He’s different from James and we can play different with a faster pace,” Lue said. “We can play him off the ball more. It’s going to be exciting. I’ve known DG for a while and having a young point guard under my tutelage, I think it’s the first time I have had one since Kyrie (Irving).”
Garland played more than 70 games just once in his seven seasons because of injuries. He’s on pace to play 42 games this season.
Garland’s uncertain availability, and the Cavaliers’ need to get star Donovan Mitchell more scoring help, motivated Cleveland to swap their young floor leader for Harden, who is 10 years older.
Cleveland got the scorer it needed, and one who can also run the point, while the Clippers managed to get younger as they head toward an offseason without a first-round draft pick.
Cavaliers coach Kenny Atkinson called Garland one of his favorite players. Yet that bond was not tight enough to prevent the deal for Harden, an 11-time All-Star and the player with the second-most three-pointers in NBA history.
“Those are the toughest calls you have to make, but he goes up on my favorites list,” Atkinson said. “I’m going to miss him. We had a great relationship.”
Atkinson seemed to take comfort in handing Garland off to Lue, who is known for getting the most out of his players.
“Ty is going to be great for Darius,” Atkinson said. “Ty was a point guard himself and understands the position. You know, my relationship with Darius, and to lose it, is kind of a tough day. But the positive is that he is coming to the Clippers and he will be with Ty. I expect him to be great here and I’m rooting for him.”
It might not have been the change Garland was looking, for but he was starting to embrace the possibilities of teaming with Kawhi Leonard.
“I hope T-Lue uses me like he did Kyrie in that championship run they had (in Cleveland),” said Garland, whose father Winston Garland played 1 1/2 seasons with the Clippers in the early 1990s. “But whatever T-Lue wants me to be, whatever position he wants me to be in, I’m going to do that. I’m here to win games.”
During Wednesday’s loss, Kawhi Leonard scored 25 points and John Collins had 19 points for the Clippers, who lost consecutive games for the first time since a five-game losing streak in December.
Rookie Yanic Konan Niederhauser scored 10 points and had eight rebounds for the Clippers, who are 17-5 since Dec. 20, although most of that success was with Harden. The Clippers were also without starting center Ivica Zubac, who was out for the birth of his child.
MILAN — Many of the officials supporting the nearly 250 U.S. athletes competing in this month’s Winter Olympics arrived in Italy last weekend to a greeting they may not have expected: Hundreds of demonstrators packed a square in central Milan to protest the reported plan to deploy U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents during the Games.
The first events in the 18-day competition, which will be shared by Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo in the Italian Alps, begin Thursday and the opening ceremony is scheduled for Friday. Against that background, International Olympic Committee President Kirsty Coventry called the agents’ involvement “distracting” and “sad.”
“This is a militia that kills. They are not welcome in Milan,” Mayor Giuseppe Sala said on local radio ahead of the protests, which took place beneath the neoclassical Porta Garibaldi arch in the Piazza XXV Aprile, named for the date of Italy’s liberation from Nazi fascism in World War II.
Many demonstrators blew whistles and carried signs of the five Olympic rings rendered as handcuffs above the words “No ICE in Milan.” One woman held a handmade poster featuring photos of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, the two Minnesotans killed by federal agents last month, alongside Liam Conejo Ramos, the 5-year-old boy in the blue bunny hat who was taken from his home in Minneapolis to a detention facility in Texas.
Anti-ICE protests take place in Piazza XXV Aprile ahead of the Olympics in Milan.
(Lucia Buricelli / Associated Press)
“All the videos are public and everyone can see what’s happening,” Bruna Scanziani, an 18-year-old demonstrator told reporters. “The perception of America has changed.”
Tricia McLaughlin, an assistant secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, confirmed the presence of ICE agents in Italy to the Athletic, leaving her department, the U.S. Consulate and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee to try to cool the controversy.
DHS said the agents dispatched to Milan are not immigration agents but come from a unit known as Homeland Security Investigations, which specializes in cross-border crime. They commonly provide intelligence and security at large sporting events, both in the U.S. and overseas, but in Milan their role will be strictly advisory and intelligence-based, Ambassador Tilman J. Fertitta said.
Travelers pass through the lobby of Milan Linate Airport M4 Metroline train station Tuesday.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, meanwhile, said it is working with the Diplomatic Security Service, which is under the umbrella of the State Department, unlike ICE, which is part of Homeland Security. The Diplomatic Security Service has been providing security for U.S. delegations at every Olympics since 1992.
“The USOPC does not work with U.S. domestic law enforcement or immigration agencies in the planning or execution of the Games, including agencies within the Department of Homeland Security often referred to as ICE,” the committee said in a statement. “Italian authorities are solely responsible for all security operations at the Games.”
Despite the tensions, in the days before the Games there were few signs of the kind of heavy security presence that marked the Paris Olympics 17 months ago. At Linate Airport, the closest of Milan’s three airports to the city center, two camouflage-clad Italian soldiers with long guns milled outside the arrival gates Monday evening. They were gone by Tuesday afternoon.
Five miles away at the Piazza del Duomo, the cultural and social heart of Milan, two pairs of soldiers stood on either side of the massive square, huddling under white awnings on either side of a pop-up Olympic souvenir tent and ignoring the hundreds of international tourists raising their phones to take photos of the ancient Gothic cathedral that gives the square its name.
A building located in the heart of Piazza del Doumo is lit up with animated Olympic competitors Tuesday.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
Up the street, where the trolley tracks curve before the trendy shops and restaurants that line the busy Via Orefici, groups of city police and Carabinieri, the national police known by their black Giorgio Armani-designed uniforms, joked among themselves. They were far less menacing than the roving patrols of soldiers and police officers that were ubiquitous in France.
A local woman shrugged at the officers’ presence.
“Being the iconic and most touristy place of Milan,” she said “there are always lots of police and soldiers.”
It’s unclear how American athletes will be received during Friday’s opening ceremony, which Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are expected to attend.
“When they have the flag and when they have the tracksuit and they’re announced as the U.S., that’s obviously an opportunity for the spectators to make known their feelings about the U.S.,” said Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, a fellow for Middle East studies at Rice University’s Baker Institute and an expert on sports and international relations.
Europeans have strong feelings about the U.S. right now, feelings spurred by more than the images of ICE agents that have led TV newscasts and have filled social media feeds for months in Italy and beyond. In the last few months, President Trump has sent forces into Venezuela to removes its president, threatened military action against Iran, fired on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific, and disparaged Europe as “decaying” and its leaders as “weak.”
Demonstrators in Milan hold signs protesting ICE in solidarity with the people of Minneapolis on Saturday.
(Alessandro Bremec / Associated Press)
“Without us,” he said in a combative speech before the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, “you’d all be speaking German.”
What has upset the continent most amid the chaos, however, is Trump’s insistence that the U.S. take control of Greenland from Denmark, a loyal North Atlantic Treaty Organization ally, warning the Danes and seven other countries that they would be hit with 25% tariffs if they didn’t relent. Many in Europe’s far-right parties, whose members are often supportive of Trump, now consider the U.S. president an “enemy of Europe,” according to a poll published by the Paris-based platform Le Grand Continent.
As a result of the blowback, Trump has backed away from the tariff threat and said he wouldn’t take control of Greenland by force, but the fallout from tensions remains.
“Greenland, especially, has really touched a nerve. That’s unfortunate coming right in the run-up to the Olympics,” said Coates Ulrichsen, who was born in Greece to English and Norwegian parents.
And that makes the U.S. team and its 232 athletes, the largest contingent at the Milan-Cortina Olympics, a convenient foil for European wrath.
“The national team is symbolic of the nation. That just makes it such a target for any potential political frustration,” Coates Ulrichsen said. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”
During the 2004 Summer Games in Athens, for example, which opened 17 months after the American-led invasion of Iraq, the U.S. team was roundly booed.
“The Olympics have been no stranger to politics,” Coates Ulrichsen said. “And obviously the key element [of athletes] walking out behind a flag is a very easy target in a way.”
Some Italians aren’t so sure.
“My personal view is that U.S. athletes will not be targeted by the protests,” said one woman who asked that her name not be used because she works with many international clients, including some in the United States. “It is more of a political subject.”
She also said the attitude of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, among the European leaders most supportive of President Trump, has blunted public opposition to the U.S.
The Olympic Rings ahead of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics on Tuesday.
(Mattia Ozbot / Getty Images)
Because this month’s Games, the first Winter Olympics to officially have co-host cities, will be spread across four clusters covering about 8,500 square miles in northern Italy, there will be four opening ceremonies Friday, with the main one at San Siro Olympic Stadium in Milan beginning at 11 a.m. Pacific time. Smaller events will take place simultaneously in the mountain venues of Cortina d’Ampezzo, Valtellina and Val di Fiemme.
Bobsledder Azaria Hill, a first-time Olympian whose mother, father and aunt all competed in the Summer Games, said marching in the opening ceremony has long been a dream of hers. And she doesn’t think politics will spoil that Friday.
“Olympics brings all the nations together,” she said. “That’s one of the special things about the Olympics, and you really see that in the unity. I think everything will be fine.”
In an effort to separate athletes from politicians, the U.S. governing bodies for three winter sports — figure skating, speedskating and hockey — changed the name of their Milan hospitality space to the Winter House.
A top Los Angeles politician said Tuesday that LA 2028 Olympics committee chair Casey Wasserman should resign following revelations about racy emails he exchanged with convicted sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell.
“I think Casey Wasserman needs to step down,” said L.A. County Supervisor Janice Hahn, who along with other L.A. politicians is working with the LA28 Olympics organizing committee on planning of the Games.
“Having him represent us on the world stage distracts focus from our athletes and the enormous effort needed to prepare for 2028,” said Hahn, who represents an area of south Los Angeles County that includes coastal neighborhoods.
A representative for Wasserman didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Wasserman and other top officials with LA 2028, which is in charge of paying for and planning the Games, are in Italy for meetings ahead of the Winter Olympics.
Hahn’s comments follow the release of investigative files on Jeffrey Epstein released last week by the Justice Department that include personal emails exchanged more than 20 years ago between Wasserman and Maxwell, Epstein’s former romantic partner.
In emails sent in March and April 2003, Wasserman — who was married at the time — writes to Maxwell about wanting to book a massage and wanting to see her in a tight leather outfit.
She offers to give him a massage that can “drive a man wild,” and the pair discuss how much they miss each other, according to files released and posted online by the U.S. Department of Justice.
In a statement released Saturday, Wasserman said he regretted his correspondence with Maxwell, which he said occurred “long before her horrific crimes came to light.”
“I never had a personal or business relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. As is well documented, I went on a humanitarian trip as part of a delegation with the Clinton Foundation in 2002 on the Epstein plane. I am terribly sorry for having any association with either of them,” he said in the statement.
The Daily Mail in 2024 published an extensive story on Wasserman’s alleged affairs during his marriage with Laura Ziffren, whom he divorced. He denied the accusations.
Mayor Karen Bass, delivering the first of two State of the City addresses planned this year, urged Angelenos on Monday to come together ahead of the 2028 Olympics while announcing a push to clean up Los Angeles’ busiest streets in the run-up to the Games.
The mayor spoke at the Expo Center in Exposition Park in front of hundreds of city workers and politicos. A second address is planned for April.
After both the UCLA and USC marching bands played to welcome the mayor, she fittingly homed in on a theme of unity as the region prepares to host the World Cup, the Olympic and Paralympic Games and the Super Bowl, among other events. But she also said that Angelenos needed to unite in the face of immigration raids, the homelessness crisis and the fires that burned in the city last year.
“Even in this difficult chapter, in our history, great events — moments of unity — are possible. And they are coming,” Bass said.
“As we prepare for … the greatest Olympic and Paralympic Games in history — we will continue to focus on the fundamentals, the things that shape how a city feels to the people who live here and the millions who will visit,” Bass said.
The preparation will include a continued focus on cleaning up encampments through Bass’ signature program, Inside Safe, she said.
Bass also announced a new clean streets initiative dubbed Clean Corridors, which she said would “accelerate beautification” of major thoroughfares throughout the city in advance of the Olympics.
“We will crack down on any illegal dumping, those who cut corners, avoid disposal fees, and leave a mess for workers and neighbors to deal with,” she said.
The mayor also focused on the Trump administration’s continued immigration raids that have led to protests in downtown Los Angeles and across the country. She spoke about the shooting in Los Angeles of Keith Porter by federal agents.
“Staying silent or minimizing what is happening is not an option. This administration does not care about safety. They don’t care about order. And they most certainly do not care about the law,” she said.
The mayor also spoke about the Palisades fire, saying she and Councilmember Traci Park would head to Sacramento next week to call for more investment in the rebuild of the Palisades. Already, 400 homes are under construction in the Palisades and hundreds more are approved and ready to be built, she said.
“We are not just rebuilding — we are rebuilding smarter, faster, and safer,” she said. “Families are returning home.”
The announcement came after a week in which President Trump criticized the city’s rebuild for going too slowly, and said he would preempt the city’s ability to issue permits for people rebuilding after the Palisades fire.
The president announced in an executive order that victims of the fire using federal aid money could self-certify to federal authorities that they have complied with local health and safety standards.
The mayor decided to deliver two States of the City this year. Traditionally, she and other mayors have made a single speech in April before releasing the proposed annual budget for the new fiscal year.
Her second State of the City is likely to focus more on the city’s budget issues.
Last year, the mayor and City Council had to close a $1-billion budget shortfall. During her State of the City in 2025, the mayor announced likely layoffs to city workers in order to produce a balanced budget.
The city ultimately avoided making any layoffs through other cuts and agreements with city unions. But the city is likely to face another tough budget year in the upcoming fiscal year.
But such optimism comes with a word of caution, given the Beijing Olympics four years ago.
With a target of three to seven medals, Team GB were left to “lick their wounds” after ending the Games with only two curling medals – won on the last two days of competition – to show for a fortnight of upsets and near-misses.
GB Snowsport chief executive Vicky Gosling later told BBC Sport that athletes had flown to China with a “slight arrogance”.
Speaking before the 2026 Games, she said: “We’ve always got it in the back of our minds.
“We can’t bank on anything because literally anything can happen. There’s that sense of jeopardy.”
Team GB chef de mission Eve Muirhead added: “What a great opportunity we have, but we’ve also got to take into account the high risk of winter sport – and that’s why everyone loves it.”
But this time it does feel different.
Take the 2024-25 season, for example. Britain’s winter athletes won nine World Championship medals across the sports.
British skiers and snowboarders achieved 28 major podiums in Olympic disciplines, won three Crystal Globes (overall World Cup titles) and one World Championship title for Atkin.
In skeleton, British athletes won three World Championship medals and 19 on the World Cup circuit – seven of which were gold – while Weston and Wyatt secured a one-two in the overall rankings.
Despite injuries threatening to derail some athletes’ march towards the Olympics, such widespread success has continued into the current season.
At the X Games, in which the world’s best freestyle skiers and snowboarders are invited to compete, Brookes, Atkin and Muir came away with five medals between them – three of them gold – in a statement performance only two weeks before Milan-Cortina.
And in men’s skeleton, Weston won five of the seven World Cup races this season and Wyatt won the other two.
“I’m really excited,” said Gosling. “When you look at the strength in depth of the team that we have, we couldn’t be in a better place.
“We’ve punched way above our weight.”
Over the four-year cycle leading into the Milan-Cortina Games, UK Sport has ploughed £25.5m into winter sports on the Olympic programme, up from £22.2m for the Beijing cycle.
The 2022 figure was almost double the investment for Sochi 2014.
However, Olympic winter sports federations in the US received about £24m for the year of 2022 alone from the US Olympic Committee.
“We’ve gone from a nation happy to be at the start line to a nation that’s truly capable of winning,” said Gosling.
“Not only do we expect to be on the start line, but we expect a medal.
Santagiulia is due to host many of the biggest ice hockey fixtures at the Games, including the men’s and women’s gold medal matches.
The first match is due to be held there on Thursday, 5 February, when hosts Italy face France in their first game of the women’s competition.
However, the stadium, less than a week before that game, is far from ready to host matches.
The stadium has been the centre of concerns throughout the build-up to the Games, including resulting in a boycott warning from the National Hockey League (NHL).
The rink in Milan, approved by the International Ice Hockey Federation, is shorter than the minimum requirement in the NHL, leading to suggestions there could be an increase in high-speed collisions. The quality of the ice has also been questioned.
“Obviously, if the players feel that the ice is unsafe, we’re not going to play,” NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said in November. “It’s as simple as that.”
The NHL said it was “pleased” with the test event at the arena in January, although that did not pass without incident. During the event there was a short delay while a small hole in the ice had to be repaired.
Santagiulia is one of two ice hockey venues for the Games, with the Milano Rho Arena staging some group-stage matches.
The Rho Arena, a temporary venue constructed in the Fiera Milano exhibition centre, has a capacity of 5,800 – 6,000 fewer than Santagiulia.
BBC Sport visited all four venues in the Milan Cluster which will host events during the Games, which officially run between 6 and 22 February.
As well as the ice hockey venues, speed skating will take place at a temporary venue in Fiera Milano to the west of the city, while short track and figure skating are at Unipol Forum on the southern outskirts.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has been contacted for comment.
U.S. skiing great Lindsey Vonn says her “Olympic dream is not over” after crashing and injuring her knee during a downhill race that was meant to be her final warmup before the start of the Milan Cortina Games next week.
“I crashed today in the Downhill race in Switzerland and injured my left knee,” the 41-year-old former Olympic gold medalist posted Friday on her Instagram Story. “I am discussing the situation with my doctors and team and will continue to undergo further exams.
“This is a very difficult outcome one week before the Olympics… but if there’s one thing I know how to do, it’s a comeback.
“My Olympic dream is not over. Thank you all for all of the love and support. I will give more information when I have it. … It’s not over until it’s over.”
Taking part in a World Cup race in Crans Montana, Vonn lost control while attempting to land a jump on the upper portion of the course and slid into the safety netting. After receiving medical attention for about five minutes, Vonn slowly skied to the finish line, using her poles to support herself and stopping twice to clutch her knee.
She smiled and waved to the crowd after crossing the finish line and received a long embrace from teammate Jacqueline Wiles before entering the medical tent. She was later airlifted off the slope for further evaluation.
Vonn was the third skier to crash during the race, which was being held in difficult conditions with low visibility. The event was canceled after Vonn’s fall.
After nearly six years away from ski racing, Vonn made a comeback last year and has two victories and three additional podium finishes in five downhill races this season — all with a partial titanium implant in her right knee.
At the 2010 Vancouver Games, Vonn became the only U.S. woman to win Olympic gold in downhill skiing. She also won bronze medals in the super-G 2010 and downhill in 2018. On Dec. 23, Vonn announced on Instagram she had qualified for “my 5th and final Olympics!”
“When I made the decision to return to ski racing, I always had one eye on Cortina because it’s a place that is very, very special to me,” she wrote. “Although I can’t guarantee any outcomes, I can guarantee that I will give my absolute best every time l kick out of the starting gate. No matter how these games end up, I feel like I’ve already won.”
The opening ceremony for the Milan Cortina Games is Feb. 6. Vonn’s first scheduled event is the women’s downhill on Feb. 8. She had also planned on competing in the super-G and the new team combined event.
The Enhanced Games launched as a concept in 2023, with some doping measures permitted under medical supervision.
Only substances approved by the United States’ Food and Drug Administration (FDA) can be taken, which is different to the list the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) allows for elite athletes.
Organisers have claimed the event “will deliver transparency and health safety by removing the stigma of enhancement – bringing its responsible usage into the light, within an approved medical framework, and one that protects athletes who would otherwise risk their health by operating in the dark to circumvent punitive structures in place today”.
However, the event has been criticised for endangering athletes’ health and undermining fair play, with Wada describing it as a “dangerous and irresponsible project” and Travis Tygart, chief executive of the US Anti-Doping Agency, calling it a “clown show”.
Earlier this month, UK Athletics (UKA) said it did not recognise the Enhanced Games as a “legitimate sporting competition”.
UKA said it “places athletes’ health and welfare at serious risk”, adding that “any event that promotes or permits the use of harmful substances with the aim of pushing the human body to its limit for short-term goals is not sport as we value it”.
The Enhanced Games are planned to be an annual competition, initially comprising short-distance swimming, sprinting and weightlifting, with the inaugural event set to be held in Las Vegas on 24 May 2026.
The event offers appearance fees and bonuses, with Greek swimmer Kristian Gkolomeev receiving a prize of $1m (£739,000) for beating a world record time in the US in February 2025.
Organisers said he swam 20.89 seconds in a 50m freestyle time trial, 0.02 seconds quicker than the world record set by Brazil’s Cesar Cielo in December 2009, although the time will not be recognised by World Aquatics.
