Watching a match, lounging on your couch, eating ice cream is a great pass-time. That is, until it dawns on you that the whole pint of Ben and Jerry’s you just consumed has more fat than the athletes on the screen in front of you have in their whole body. This is usually the point where we swear to start dieting. Tomorrow.
Believe it or not, those super fit, muscular athletes on your TV eat just like you. They may workout as often as we sit in a desk, but the fuel that goes into those super bodies? The same..
Time Out asked Olympic-bound athletes exactly what they eat at the unveiling of the Opening Ceremony uniform.
Josh Dunkley-Smith, Olympic silver medalist in rowing may look like a sculpted god, but he’s actually a carboholic. He loves to eat Italian, and lots of it.
“We spend a lot of time in Italy so pizzas, pastas, they’re great. There’s this place we go in Italy near where we train that do big gigantic pizzas. They’re bigger than car tire pizzas.”
Lucky for Josh, Sydney has some great Italian restaurants to satisfy his cravings while he’s in town.
Ken Wallace is no newbie to the Olympics. Rio will be his third go at the games. The 32 year old knows what it takes to be a successful athlete. Even though he’s striving for his third medal, he still indulges in his favourite foods.
“I do like your standard pub food. A big T-bone. Beer, chips and veg. I’m a pretty plain and basic kind of guy. Just some Aussie food. Or even just going down to the park to have a barbecue with my mates.”
Melbourne native and volleyball player Louise Bawden has a few favourite spots to grub. She used to live in St Kilda, and said you can’t go wrong eating anywhere around there. The Prahran end of Chapel street is home to Mothers Milk, a cosy bar where she’s spent a lot of time. There is one stand out, though.
“I really like going down to Victoria street in Richmond and getting some salt and pepper squid from one of the Vietnamese restaurants there. They always do it really well. It’s always super fresh and flavoursome.”
Bawden’s teammate, Taliqua Clancy, is tall, broad shouldered, and of course, slim. Everything you’d expect from a young athlete. While the 23 year old lives and trains in Adelaide, she loves Gelato Messina. You read that right. An Olympic athlete eats gelato. So don’t feel too bad about your own ice cream addiction.