Olympians trash Village food as ‘not great’ — except for this one item they can’t get enough of
It looks like the Olympic Village won’t be winning any gold medals for its food.
Sodexo Live!, the official food provider at this year’s Paris’ Games, is serving up a staggering 40,000 meals per day for ravenous athletes, but not all the competitors are impressed by the offerings.
Now that the athletes have been noshing on the food for about a week, they’re starting to dish out their opinions
After the US women’s gymnastic team’s big win on Tuesday, a reporter asked them if they were enjoying the French food — and all five women glanced at each other in hesitation before Biles spoke up with a diplomatic approach.
“OK, here’s the thing. I don’t think we’re having proper French cuisine in the Village like you guys might be eating because you’re outside the Village,” she said during a press conference. “For the athletes it’s a little bit… healthier.”
Hezly Rivera, the youngest on the team at 16, chimed in: “I don’t think it’s very good, at least what we’re having in the dining hall. I definitely think French food is good, but what we’re having in there, I don’t think it’s the best. But it gets the job done.”
“I thought the pizza was good,” Biles added, attempting to sugarcoat the commentary.
Meanwhile, US rugby star Ilona Maher, who has gone viral for her TikToks and has received support from star athletes like Jason Kelce, shared in a video with 3 million views that “there’s some misconceptions on what athletes eat.”
“We eat a lot of carbs,” she said, showing off her tray with a bread roll, a croissant, a crêpe and some slices of cheese. “Fuel up, don’t stay hungry.”
While Maher didn’t give her review on the food, it hasn’t stopped others from hitting out at the cuisine on offer.
Raven “Hulk” Sanders, a Team USA track and field star, captioned her video in the dining hall with the words “It’s been a struggle,” and used a TikTok sound saying, “You disappointed me.”
Erik Shoji, an American volleyball player, shared videos of a recent breakfast he chowed down on, and gave the food mixed reviews.
For breakfast, Shoji had eggs, rice, sausage, fruit and “the main event”: a croissant and a slice of Matcha cake. He said the eggs were “better than average” and that the rice and sausage tasted like “what you might expect it to taste like” but was good “for breakfast.”
The croissant was too soft for his liking and “didn’t crunch at all,” but it tasted “pretty good,” while the Matcha cake was “not bad.” His favorite part, however, seemed to be the fruit, which he described as fresh.
For Shoji’s post-win food vlog, he had a post-midnight dinner that included pasta with pesto sauce, broccoli, a piece of chicken and grilled tofu.
“I feel like pesto is always good, and the noodles really aren’t that overdone, so that’s good,” he shared, really selling it. As for the chicken, “that also tastes how you might expect it. Not terrible, not great.”
Meanwhile, Lee Kiefer, who won gold in Women’s Individual Foil Fencing, posted a video of one of her “Asian dinner” prior to her big win which included sticky rice, chicken tikka, curry beef and vegetables.
“Back to Asia,” she said in the video with 2 million views.
Kiefer rated the sticky rice 2 stars, the chicken tikka 5 stars, curry beef 5 stars, leeks 3 stars and cauliflower 3 stars.
At the end of the video, she rated the chocolate muffin for dessert an impressive 5 stars — making her just one of the Olympic athletes to give high praise to the muffins.
Norwegian swimmer Henrik Christiansen has declared himself the “Olympic Muffin Man” because of his love for the muffins in the Olympic Village.
Christiansen has devoted eight TikTok videos to his loved of the baked good — and has hinted that there’s even more to come.
It started with an initial video in which he reviewed some of the meals he’s had at the Olympics, giving the “chocy muffin” an 11 out of 10 review.
Later that same day, Christiansen posted another video about the muffins, and people in the comments joked that they felt like they “just witnessed something private.”
He’s continued to post more and more muffin videos, including one where he watches the sunset with one of the items, one where he is hides a muffin in his drawer, and one where his teammate plays along saying he’s “only there for the muffins.”
It seems it’s only a matter of time before more Olympians trade their meals for muffins.