Yahoo Finance Team GB’s Tom Bosworth Says the Olympic Site ‘Feels Like Prison’ With ‘Cold Slop’ for Food
Team GB athlete Tom Bosworth has slammed the International Olympic Committee over 'prison' conditions at Sapporo, the host city for the Tokyo Olympics distance races. Taking to Twitter, he criticised the 'slop' being served up at Sapporo Odai Park, which he likened to a 'sweaty school dining hall'.
"Hey @iocmedia you know the millions of (dollar emoji) you make off the Olympics. Any chance, in the week of our race we could get some food? Like meals?," Bosworth said in the since-deleted Tweets, which included a video of the offering. "Not cold slop, steamed onions or partly cooked pasta? This is the 'pinnacle of sport.' Sapporo feels like a prison."
In a second tweet he added: "Welcome to the sweaty school dining hall that a lifetime of hard work gets you. @iocmedia any chance you could be a little athlete focused? Any chance we could have somewhere to get some fresh air aside from the 900m training lap we have? A cup of coffee wouldn't go amiss."
The Olympic marathon and race walking events were moved to Sapporo – some 800km north of Tokyo, where the Olympic Village is located – due to concerns about the intense heat. Clearly, the Tokyo Organising Committee hired two separate caterers, because the cafeteria in Bosworth's video has nothing on the food selection at the main village.
Throughout the Games, athletes have been posting rave reviews of the dishes at the Olympic Village Dining Hall on TikTok. "Not to be dramatic, but these are the best gyoza dumpling things I've ever had in my life," American rugby player Ilona Maher declared, adding that she eats them for every meal.
"So much choice! The food looks so much better than Rio!," wrote Australian tennis player Daria Gavrilova, sharing a tour of the main dining hall on TikTok, while Irish rugby player Harry McNulty said: "The Olympic dining hall caters to all diets, cultures, and the food is brilliant. It changes most days and no complaints."
Featuring the Olympics' first-ever gluten-free section, the dining halls serve around 48,000 meals every day, AFP reports, with a choice of 700 menu items split across Japanese, Western, and Asian categories (the latter includes food from China, India and Vietnam), made from ingredients sourced from all 47 regions of Japan.
Ramen and udon noodles, tempura vegetables and seafood, and Wagyu beef are all available, but raw fish is off the cards. Sushi rolls can only contain cooked shrimp, canned tuna, or veggie options, as per the Games' safety rules. Each dish features nutritional information like calories, protein, fat, carbohydrates, sodium and salt.
It turns out, feeding more than 18,000 competitors from 206 countries is exactly the logistical nightmare it sounds like. "I feel it's a lot of responsibility for us," Tsutomu Yamane, the senior director of Tokyo 2020's food and beverages services department told AFP. "We want them to enjoy [Japanese food]… but it's major pressure."(continued below)
While public complaints are a rare occurrence, Bosworth isn't the only athlete to openly criticise the food served at the Olympic Games. At the 2014 Sochi Olympics, American bobsledder Lolo Jones took to Instagram to post a video of a stew she described as "re-manufactured dog food", adding "just pretend it's a nice, juicy steak".
And when the Olympics arrived in Italy in 2006, Alpine skier Resi Stiegler described the food as "disgusting" in an interview with CNN. "I've never eaten such bad food in my life," she said. "It's unfortunate because Italy is known for its good food and I've had good Italian food, but I guess they just don't know how to cook for a lot of people."
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