London: The city that never... will go hungry

The best place in the world to come to discover your place in the genetic lottery of life is the Olympic Village in the days leading up to the Games.

This week, the planet’s fittest, fastest, strongest and most perfect physical specimens of humanity are flooding through the gates of this corner of London real estate and calling it home for the next two weeks.

Yesterday we joined them for a few hours in this inner sanctum. Let’s just say that no amount of sucking in of stomachs and pumping out of chests could lessen the difference between us mere mortals and the world’s elite sportspeople.

Dan Martin, fresh from his Tour de France excursions, arrived late on Monday night, as he prepares for Saturday’s Olympic road race. But at stages earlier that day, he must have wished he was back on his bike. He explained: “It was a nightmare trip. Our flight from France was delayed about two hours and then when we got to London our bus driver didn’t know what he was doing. He didn’t know how to work the air conditioning on the bus, which got interesting as the Argentinian women’s hockey team were also on the bus and they started to strip off a bit because of the heat. It was super-hot on the bus and we drove past the Village and then half an hour later we drove past the Village again. He was lost. I got here around 7.30pm and was pretty tired at that stage.”

Even after the enormity of the Tour, Martin is struggling to take in the scale of everything in the Village. “It is just huge. Even the food hall is massive. Everything is extreme here. There is a fantastic atmosphere in the Village. There are also an incredible number of people dressed in bright coloured shell suits which are a bit 80s! But it is a great vibe, everyone is super friendly and it is nice to be a part of it.”

Martin is right, it is huge. The athletes and officials will be housed in 2,818 apartments requiring 16,000 beds, 9,000 wardrobes, 11,000 sofas, 22,000 pillows, 12,000 blankets and 28,000 branded duvets. Admittedly, the apartments are basic and sparse. The bedrooms (varying numbers, depending on the size of a team) house two single beds, side lockers and a wardrobe. The apartments have one to two bathrooms and then a main communal living room area with couches, chairs and a flat screen television. No kitchen? No worries. The Olympic Village boasts a gigantic food hall which will cater for the dining needs of every athlete of every nation until it is time to say goodbye.

“The main food hall here has 5,500 seats, will be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week during the Games. At peak times we will serve between 45 and 50,000 meals a day. We estimate that between the Olympics and the Paralympics we will serve in the region of 1.5 million meals,” a spokesman explained yesterday.

The building, a canvas type structure, which will be torn down after the Paralympics, is divided into a number of sub sections catering for different cultural tastes including European, British and African. Each stall carries a board detailing nutritional and energy content with foods varying from pasta to pizzas, breadsticks to Big Macs (and yes, the lines at the golden arches grow longer and longer as more athletes are knocked out of competition).

The catering company which oversees the operations, American giant Aramark, are seasoned veterans of feeding the world’s best athletes, indeed London will be their 16th Olympics between Winter and Summer Games. They have a dedicated area for halal foods which must be prepared in a precise fashion. One unexpected challenge of this edition though is that it coincides with the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, with many Muslim athletes fasting during the day in accordance with their beliefs. It has meant late night rushes for food, but with an operation that never sleeps, nobody goes to bed hungry.