If TikTok has changed anything about the Olympics, it’s that Olympics viewers around the world now have access to unfiltered, behind-the-scenes looks into what life is like in the Olympic Village (this year, that includes the offshoot Olympic Village on a cruise ship in Tahiti). We know how Olympic athletes sleep (on cardboard beds with Scrub Daddy-esque mattresses). We know how they get changed (quickly, and with makeshift coverings since not all the rooms have curtains). We’ve learned that Olympic Village Tinder is, apparently, disappointing. And thanks to all these Olympic Village vlogs, we also know more than ever about what the food is like inside the dining hall.
Olympics organizers promised “healthy, gourmet and creative food, with more plant-based and local options,” but dining in the Olympic Village hasn’t gotten off to the smoothest start: Following reports of an egg shortage last week and complaints about not having enough meat, Olympics organizers announced today that they’d fixed their early logistical problems and added “700 kilos of eggs and a ton of meat” to the menu to better meet the athletes’ needs. On TikTok, though, the situation doesn’t look too different from your standard large American college dining hall.
In one video, Tina Rahimi, a boxer who’s representing Australia, walks viewers through the dining hall to show the halal section. We see that the dining hall is arranged by cuisine (World, Asian, French, and halal), with salad bars available outside each section. There appears to be a huge variety of food, with stations for pastas, grilled items, sides, and beverages.
Other videos show a large hand-washing station before entering the dining hall, an abundance of fresh fruit, and — lest you think it’s all boring — plenty of baked goods, crepes, and cookies. It’s a staggering amount of food when you consider how long the Olympics goes on: During the two 15-day periods of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the organizers expect to serve 13 million meals. (And that doesn’t include the foods different delegations have shipped to Paris for their athletes.) But how does it all taste?
The seeming verdict: The food is good, not great. In her video, Rahimi offers just an unenthusiastic nod after tasting her meal. “It’s good. It’s not really… seasoned,” says Aleah Finnegan, a gymnast from Missouri who’s representing the Philippines, in another video. Though there is a seasoning station, she notes, the influx of athletes to Olympic Village has made the cafeteria more crowded and makes the process of getting food take longer.
Lee Kiefer and Gerek Meinhardt, the fencing couple who are representing the US, have reviewed a few of their meals. Their reviews would suggest that Sodexo, who’s handling the dining halls, is doing okay with the meat mains, like chicken tikka and curry beef, but not so well with the carb sides, like couscous and sticky rice.
If any dish has been the standout of the Olympic Village dining hall, it’s the chocolate muffin, which has appeared in multiple videos from different athletes. Its biggest fan, however, is the Norwegian swimmer Henrik Christiansen, who has made four videos about the chocolate muffin alone.
But really, it’s the social dynamics at play that seem the most reminiscent of college dining, with every delegation clustered into its own little clique. Freya Colbert, a swimmer representing Great Britain, jokingly set her video of the dining hall to an audio track that says: “It’s hell in there; it’s horror.” And just as that setting always highlighted the stratification of social groups, the Canadian rugby player Piper Logan shared a video about the imposter syndrome feeling of being in the dining hall while Serena Williams walks by.
