Team GB have hit out over the Olympic Village food, accusing the Paris hosts of serving raw meat and causing shortages which have forced them to bring in an extra chef at their own alternative restaurant.
As part of their extensive planning, the British Olympic Association had hired an entire catering college in nearby Clichy as a performance base. The athletes are now snubbing the village in favour of the food cooked by the specialist Team GB chefs.
Olympic organisers had boasted of Michelin-standard chefs but athletes have complained of shortages of food and that it has been of insufficient quality, prompting them to instead flock to the private British performance lodge which is full of supplies from Aldi and a team of on-site chefs overseen by the sports nutritionist Wendy Martinson. The lodge, which Team GB regard as a key performance advantage, is only 15 minutes by bus from the village and also has extensive facilities to relax and train.
‘There are not enough of certain foods – and then there is the quality’
“At the beginning of every Games there’s usually two or three issues – the big one this time is the food in the village, which is not adequate,” said Andy Anson, the Team GB chief executive.
“There are not enough of certain foods: eggs, chicken, certain carbohydrates, and then there is the quality of the food, with raw meat being served to athletes. They have got to improve it over the next couple of days dramatically.
“Our athletes have decided they would rather go and eat in our performance lodge in Clichy, so we are having to get another chef to come over as the demand is far exceeding what we thought it would be.”
Anson revealed that some athletes were even bringing back food from the Team GB performance lodge to eat at the village so that they did not have to go into what is a large communal eating space with over 3,000 seats.
“The athletes are not going there just to eat their lunch, they are packing meals for their dinner as they don’t want to go into the athlete restaurant to eat,” Anson told The Times. “So we are trying to make sure our athletes have an advantage by having more food.”
Some Team GB support staff have also been dining at the performance lodge in preference to the mass catering on offer inside the village.
The French newspaper L’Équipe has separately been informed of complaints from athletes over a lack of supplies and the slow speed of restocking certain popular foods.
Sodexo Live, the company which oversees the catering, told L’Équipe that it “takes very seriously” the feedback from athletes and admitted that it was working to “adapt our supplies to the increase in the restaurants in the athletes’ village as well as to the actual consumption observed over the first few days”. They also acknowledged that several products such as eggs and grilled meats were “particularly popular and volumes have therefore been increased”.
Athletes face ‘ridiculous’ charges for children’s tickets
Team GB stars have separately also criticised the Paris 2024 policy of having to pay full price for tickets for their infants. “It is absolutely ridiculous,” said British rower Mathilda Hodgkins-Byrne, whose two-year-old son Freddie has travelled to Paris. “Any human being, even if they are in a sling, they have to have a ticket.
“I have never had to pay for rowing tickets for Freddie before, given his age. We know that with the noise of the Games, he is literally going to come into my race and leave, but we have still got to pay for that.”
British track cyclist Dan Bigham, who has a one-year-old son Theo, added: “It seems so illogical that I have to buy a ticket for a one-year-old. Officially, he takes a seat, even though he won’t be able to sit on it at a year old. It’s annoying. Is it worth £300? He won’t remember it. But it will be nice to have him there.”