news

한어Русский языкEnglishFrançaisIndonesianSanskrit日本語DeutschPortuguêsΕλληνικάespañolItalianoSuomalainenLatina

[Text/Ruan Jiaqi, Observer Network]

"Feeding 15,000 athletes is certainly no easy task, but the main restaurant in the Paris Olympic Village seems destined not to win any medals." The British Guardian complained about the insufficient food rations faced by athletes just after the opening of the Paris Olympics.

According to a report by The Times on the 25th, as the Paris Olympic Village officially opened, more and more athletes from various countries checked in, and the pressure on catering and supply chains increased. Some athletes found that in addition to the lack of air conditioning in their residences and the beds they slept on were made of cardboard, they could not even get enough food, as the food provided by the restaurants was either insufficient in quantity or replenished too slowly.

Similar complaints began on Tuesday night, when Andy Anson, chairman of the British Olympic Association, revealed that they had to abandon the restaurant in the Olympic Village and urgently dispatched chefs from the UK to set up a new restaurant in the suburbs of Paris. The French company responsible for providing food for the Olympics has said it will make improvements.

The Daily Beast in the United States joked that in the past, French tourists traveling to the UK have always complained about the bad food here, but at the Paris Olympics, the situation seems to have reversed.

According to the Guardian, although Paris organizers had claimed that they would provide athletes with Michelin-starred restaurant-level meals, the reality was very different: eggs and roast chicken were rationed, queues were too long, and popular dishes were in short supply. After eggs were rationed for breakfast on Wednesday, many people, including the British national team, complained about the food supply in the main restaurant of the Olympic Village.

The Olympic Village needs to prepare about 40,000 meals a day, and the main restaurant has 3,300 seats. An anonymous British athlete complained to the Times that the organization of the Paris Olympic Village was not as orderly as imagined, and the organizers did not do as well as the previous Olympic Games.

"In recent days, there has been a huge influx of people and it's been chaotic," he said. "The organisers say there will be more plant-based food in an effort to make the Games more sustainable, but sometimes it's hard to even get a piece of chicken if you go during peak hours."

British Olympic Association President Anson also pointed out to the Times that although there will be some problems at the beginning of every Olympic Games, the biggest problem of the Paris Olympics is the lack of food supply in the Olympic Village.

"First, there was a lack of certain foods: eggs, chicken, and certain carbohydrates; then there was the problem of food quality. Athletes found that the meat in some dishes was raw. The organizers must significantly improve the meals in the next few days." Anson revealed that in order to solve the "difficulty in eating", they were forced to urgently dispatch chefs from the UK and rent a catering school 15 minutes' drive from the Olympic Village to improve the meals themselves. "Our athletes prefer to eat at our training camp in Clichy, so we have to find another chef because the demand is far beyond our imagination."

He added, "After the athletes have their lunch, they have to pack their dinner to take back to the village as they don't want to eat at the athletes' canteen. So we are trying to safeguard our athletes by providing more food. This is the biggest problem at the moment."

According to the Daily Telegraph, in this rented temporary camp, the British catering team has designed a seven-day rolling menu, and the snack station will provide freshly made sandwiches, cereals, fruits and yogurt at any time. There are also 700 jars of peanut butter, 6,500 bags of popcorn, 200 boxes of corn flakes, 22,000 cereal bars, more than 1,000 boxes of cereal and nearly 1,000 bags of dried mangoes for British athletes. Some of the British team's logistics support staff also chose to dine here instead of in the Olympic Village.

According to the Guardian, in order to reduce the carbon footprint of food during the Olympics to half of that of the 2012 London Olympics, the Paris Olympics has set a strict quality charter for food supply, requiring a quarter of the ingredients to be purchased within 250 kilometers of Paris and 20% of the ingredients to be certified organic. All meat, milk and eggs will come from France, and one-third of the food will be plant-based.

In addition, the organizers claimed that nearly two-thirds of the 500 dishes served were vegetarian, such as beef stew in Burgundy red wine made with artificial meat.

But this obviously cannot meet the energy consumption required by athletes. After receiving the complaint, Sodexo Live!, a French food service company responsible for the Olympic catering, confirmed to French media that the demand for foods such as roast chicken and eggs is "very high" and they will increase the quantity to meet the needs of athletes. "We take the feedback from athletes very seriously and actively work to adjust our supply to suit the actual consumption of the Olympic Village restaurants."

A spokesperson for Carrefour, the supermarket group responsible for the supply of fresh produce, also responded that the company was asked to increase the amount originally planned and that they were able to meet the athletes' requirements. According to French media, Carrefour originally planned to provide 600 tons of agricultural products other than eggs during the entire Olympic Games.

A spokesman for the British national team told AFP on Friday, hours before the opening ceremony, that the situation was improving. "I think the latest update is that we understand that the situation is improving and that the Paris Olympic organizers are monitoring it," he said.

The Fortune magazine website also mentioned that the lack of air conditioning and cardboard beds were also the most criticized areas by athletes from various countries. Australian water polo player Tilly Kearns posted a video on the second day of her stay, complaining that her back was about to be "broken from sleeping", which caused Australian netizens to complain, "Is this the Olympics or the Hunger Games?"

Some countries have also taken different measures to create a comfortable environment for athletes. For safety reasons and lifestyle preferences, the US men's basketball team decided not to live in the Olympic Village, but found another high-end residence outside. The British national team spent 70,000 pounds to install an air-conditioning system to ensure that athletes can maintain their condition in hot weather.

This article is an exclusive article of Observer.com and may not be reproduced without authorization.