Recently, I found myself watching the final cross-country Olympic skiing event, and I couldn’t help but wonder, ‘How on Earth are these people not getting tired?’ Cross country skiing reaches up to 50 km (31 mi) taking over 2 hours to complete, and I just could not imagine where a human being finds the energy to achieve such a feat. So, naturally, I decided to do a deep dive on what the Milan-Cortina Olympics are serving the world’s most competitive athletes and how exactly this fuels their once-in-a-lifetime performances.
Where does this Energy Come From?
Olympians expend exponentially more energy than the average person during training and event days. When it comes to movement, sharpness, and power, energy is crucial to success as an Olympic level athlete. Research from NPR’s The Salt reports that endurance athletes can consume up to 8,000 calories a day to fuel their performance, and Michael Phelps even reported consuming a total of 12,000 at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. No doubt, this is a lot of food, and to reach their highest potential, athletes take their food intake and nutrition very seriously.
To reach these high expenditure amounts, Olympic Village food halls must prepare the above-average food stocking that will take place over the course of the games. Let’s look at what Milan-Cortina was serving up this year’s athletes.
Milan-Cortina’s Olympic Village Food Hall
Milan-Cortina’s food halls were more than prepared to keep the world’s athletes full and energized. Served cafeteria style, Milan prepared 4,500 meals a day and Cortina 4,000. To accommodate this year’s 2,600 Olympians and many more employees, the food halls remained open 24 hours a day, cycling through food every 5 hours. All day, athletes can help themselves to a buffet of a diverse array of foods from breakfast omelets and cold cuts to decadent desserts.
It’s no surprise that despite the multitude of international options, Milan-Cortina emphasized Italian cuisine across its menu. The inclusion of local, traditional dishes gave Olympians an authentic taste of this year’s host country, like Canederli from Italy’s Alto Adige for example, which is a cheesy Northern Italian bread dumpling typically stuffed with pork and herbs. Another Italian-style favorite amongst the athletes this year was the Olympic-ring shaped pasta, cooked “perfectly al dente” according to U.S. snowboarded Hahna Norman. This pasta could be paired with a variety of sauces and local cheeses straight from the wheel, including Grana Padano and Formaggio.
In addition to Italian pizza and pasta galore, Danish Olympian Viktor Thorup provides a detailed look into the rest of the food hall on his YouTube channel. Breakfast stations offer 10 different varieties of yogurt, fresh fruit, and omelets for a fresh, protein-packed start to an intense training day. Lunches and dinners were often very similar; fresh mussels and focaccia being notable highlights. Italy is also known for their delicious espresso, so Thorup was sure to make note of the espresso/coffee stations both inside and outside the venue. Despite the variety and all-you-can-eat style, Thorup did critique the food for a lack of spice, although this choice was purposeful in accommodating all eating preferences.
The food halls also made a great effort in sustainability and accommodating dietary restrictive athletes and employees. Gluten-free and vegan athletes have a station with plenty of cross-contamination safe, premade dishes. Every buffet option also lists its nutrition information to ensure athletes on strict diets can sufficiently meet their requirements. Thorup’s video also outlines the staff’s dedication towards waste reduction: when disposing of trash, food hall employees are always present to guide diners through the disposal of their waste, four bins separating food waste, paper, plastic, and pet bottles.
What can we take away?
Aside from the fun of putting yourself in the shoes of an Olympic athlete, I believe the number one takeaway from looking at the Olympic dining hall is this: food is fuel! If you are an athlete, whether that be playing pickleball with your friends or perform a gold-medal winning routine like Alysa Liu, your body requires adequate nutrition to achieve such energy expenditure. Although we may not always be able to fuel ourselves with local Italian delicacies, getting in basic carbs, protein, and fat is essential for any sort of athletic performance.