Steve DorfmanPalm Beach Post
Befitting the City of Light’s well-earned gastro reputation, organizers of this year’s Summer Olympic Games in Paris created a comprehensive vision for the food it would provide athletes, support staff and spectators.
“We're in France, so we wanted to offer both quality, with more than 500 recipes devised by chefs, and a real diversity of meals, so that all the world's athletes can find what they like to eat before their competition, and those who will be staying for several weeks can enjoy the pleasure of being in France,” said Paris 2024 PresidentTony Estanguet when he gave reporters a tour of the Olympic Village’s main 3,300-seat dining room earlier this month.
The 52-acre Olympic Village has 15 different dining locations for athletes.
Beyond the food, though, organizers have also prioritized making this year’s Games as green as possible — and that includes how food is sourced, procured, prepared and disposed of.
In a previous statement, organizers noted that because “humanity is facing unprecedented climatic and environmental challenges that require the mobilization of all, Paris 2024 must also rise to the challenge: to enable everyone to eat well and responsibly. Paris 2024’s ambition for the Games is to use the knowledge and creativity of French cuisine to create more responsible eating habits in stadiums and during sports events.”
Olympic gold standard for sustainability
At its peak, the Olympic Village will host some 15,000 athletes and serve some 40,000-plus meals daily. The logistics involved are beyond overwhelming.
Nonetheless, organizers have publicly committedto several environmentally friendly principles— each of which has multiple sub-commitments — that are firsts in Olympic Games history. Among the most notable ones:
- Doubling the amount of plant-based offerings — which will, they say, decrease by half the carbon footprint of a typical Olympic Games.
- Using “100% certified food” with 80% being of French origin, 30% being wholly organic and 25% coming from within 250km (approximately 155 miles) of the venue.
- Reduce by half the usage of single-use plastics.
- Limit food waste — and recycle or repurpose 100% of uneaten food.
- Creating “second lives” for all equipment and infrastructure related to food procurement, preparation and service.
Carb-loading or lean proteins? Olympians need lots of options
During his legendary gold-medal-winning swimming career, Michael Phelps famously spoke of the 8,000 to 10,000 calories he’d consume daily to fuel him during training and competition.
From fried egg sandwiches with cheese, chocolate chip pancakes, French toast and five-egg omelets to bowls of grits, pounds of pasta, ham-and-cheese sandwiches and pizza, Phelps was on a never-ending quest to replenish his energy.
While athletes from the 206 participating countries at this year’s Games will be able to follow the Phelps diet if they choose, they can also rest assured that everything available has been conceived of and prepared to help them maximize their performances.
The dining areas have been divided into four food themes: French, Asian, African-Caribbean and World.
The events management and catering group Sodexo Live! is overseeing the Olympic Village food service.
As Eater noted before the Games started about the challenges Sodexo Live! faced, “It’s not just baseline nutritional needs that need to be met — athletes are coming from all over the world, with their own culinary traditions. The Olympics are supposed to be a place of cultural exchange, and this extends to the food.
New footage released of Olympic Village
Paris unveiled a video of its new Olympic Village. The housing complex features a fitness center, doping control center and a club to relax in.
"Sodexo Live! hasbrought on partner chefsAmandine Chaignot, Akrame Benallal, and Alexandra Mazzia to serve dishes like quinoa muesli, chickpea pommade, and gnocchi in chicken sauce to showcase modern French cuisine. Other chefs on the team are charged with creating everything athletes will need to eat, both before and after the competition.”
Estelle Lamotte, Sodexo Live’s! director of Olympic Village, explained to Eater how she and her team approached their task: “Athletes work and prepare for four years, and they’re here for two weeks ... Depending on the sports, some of them have to ensure they have the exact right weight prior to the games, and maintain it. Other sports like cycling and running are much more gluten-centric. We have 32 sports, so you have 32 different ways of eating.”
Lamotte noted that athletes and each country’s traveling delegation had access to aweb app before the Games started. This provided everyone with the day’s menu plans, enabling athletes to map out everything they need to eat at a given time and on a given day.
One of the partner chefs who isin charge of helping feed American athletes is senior executive chef Jeff Leidy.
He discussed with Eater the challenges of meeting the varied and disparate nutritional needs of so many kinds of athletes.
“As a chef, you originally look at a meal or food that you’re preparing and think, how does it taste? How does it look? But then you have this dynamic of the nutritional needs of the athletes,” he said. “So when you do your menu planning, you have to understand there are certain athletes who want a carb-heavy diet, there are certain athletes who want lean protein.
"There are a lot of different factors that you have to take into account, and then wrap all that up into the question of how do I make it taste? How do we make it look good, and appealing to the athletes, especially over a long period of time?”
Leidy also noted that, while he and his team will present as many creative dishes as possible to U.S. athletes, there will also be plenty of comfort food — barbecue ribs, chili, macaroni and cheese, etc. — just in case anyone gets a hankering for a taste of home.
