‘I always found the dining hall intimidating’: SA Olympic medallist lifts the lid on games

Gigantic dining halls and temptations of unhealthy foods are just some of the challenges that athletes participating at the Olympic Games tend to grapple with, according to medallists who have experienced it.

“I always found the dining hall intimidating. It gave me anxiety. It’s the biggest place in the Olympic village. You walk into this hall and you don’t know where to start,” said South African bronze medallist in Canoeing Bridgitte Hartley.

“It must be the size of like three rugby fields,” added former swimmer Ryk Neethling.

The two reflected on their Olympic experience on Monday evening at an exclusive screening of the Paris 1924 Olympics film produced by acclaimed filmmaker Anant Singh, courtesy of Video Vision. Singh, who co-produced Sarafina, is also a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

The documentary film, which has been remastered, captures the first-ever games to be shot on film: Paris 1924.

The Paris 2024 Olympics start on Friday.

Alongside Hartley and Neethling was gold medallist in rowing Lawrence Ndlovu.

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Dietary discipline

“It [dining hall] is big and there are so many people, it doesn’t stop. You have to be prepared for it because it could take you an hour [to get food]. I remember not wanting to eat breakfast because it would take too long,” averred Hartley.

Hartley won a bronze medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics in the women’s K-1 500 metres.

Hartley said there’s also the temptation that comes with the ubiquity of types of food one can choose from, healthy and unhealthy.

“It’s another form of discipline that you are not aware of and there’s anything you can eat.”

“The first thing I ate after getting my medal was a red velvet cake,” she said bursting into laughter.

Gold medallist in the men’s lightweight coxless four event at the 2012 Summer Olympics Ndlovu said the accessibility of food made it challenging to maintain the required weight to compete.

“We all had to weigh 70kg and we left South Africa weighing 71kg and with lightweight rowing, you don’t race if you’re 70.1kg and so all of us had one kg to lose before the race,” he said.

“But there’s McDonald’s and there’s Coke at every corner where you can use your tag and get a Coke. So we avoided the dining hall,” shared Ndlovu.

Usain Bolt famously claimed that McDonald’s chicken nuggets helped power him to gold-medal supremacy at the Beijing and London Olympics – but fast-food options are off the menu for athletes in Paris this summer.

Organisers for the 2024 Olympic Games have instead opted for a healthy, sustainable approach, with a host of high-end French cuisine treats on offer as competitors from 206 nations across the globe prepare for the biggest sporting event of them all.

“It’s fair to reflect that it’s a much healthier Olympics in Paris – no McDonald’s, no chicken nuggets, more healthy food. It’s definitely less junk food. We really try to push the quality high,” Paris 2024’s head of catering, Philipp Wurz told the media, reported Metro UK.

The athletes’ village, sitting in the Parisian suburb of Saint-Denis, will be embracing locally sourced and plant-based food options, which French President Emmanuel Macron himself got to sample on his visit to the site this week.

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