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Feeding the 15,000 athletes in France for the 2024 Summer Olympics is no small feat. But Paris’ Olympic Village — located between the towns of Saint-Denis, Saint Ouen and L’Île-Saint-Denisseems — seems up to the challenge. 

There are six distinct food areas, or “restaurants” as Olympic officials have named them. The Olympic Village’s dining complex spans over 46,000 square feet and is preparing to provide over 60,000 meals every day during the games, which will run from July 26 until August 12. 

Two of the restaurants will offer typical French cuisine, two will provide a wide variety of options from all over the world, one will serve up strictly Halal food and one is focusing on Asian-inspired fare. 

Some Olympians who arrived early for the games have already given their fans a tour of the cafeteria on TikTok — and shared their reviews of the food. 

Filipino-American gymnast Aleah Finnegan, 21, who has previously competed for the U.S. but is representing the Philippines in Paris, shared a video on her TikTok account @aleahfinn on Monday, July 22. She documented herself walking through the dining hall as she was getting a meal with other athletes. 

After a few sped-up clips of the busy facilities, which she described as “crowded,” Finnegan offered her honest opinion of the food from the world cuisine area. 

“Its pretty good, like it’s good food, it’s just…you could probably season it a little bit,” she said. “Just personal preference. That’s me.” 

“Everyone’s here, so it takes a lot longer to get food,” Finnegan added before showing viewers a better angle of her plate, which included grilled meat (most likely chicken), potatoes, green beans and an assortment of fruit. 

Team USA fencers Lee Kiefer and Gerek Meinhardt, who married in 2019 and have each medaled at previous Summer Olympics, gave their own tour while getting breakfast at the “world” station. On their joint TikTok account @oldmarriedolympians, Kiefer, 30, and Meinhardt, 33, show the fresh fruit, different yogurts and dairy products, hot food such as pancakes, waffles, eggs and beans and a selection of baked goods. 

The “much anticipated” French cuisine section hadn’t opened at the time of their video (July 20), they said, but there was still an impressive array of French cheeses and croissants to choose from.

After sitting down to eat, Kiefer and Meinhardt gave their yogurt and mango five out of five stars, the fried eggs three out of five and the mushrooms and bacon four out of five. 

In constructing the menus for the world-class athletes, Paris organizers considered a variety of factors, such as nutritional content, sustainability and the desires of each country’s Olympic delegation. But Carole Galissant — a nutritionist for Sodexo Live, the company overseeing culinary operations at the games — told the New York Times that there is still a distinctive French feel to the food. 

Media were offered a taste test of the cuisine in the Olympic Village on June 25.

DIMITAR DILKOFF/AFP via Getty


“We are still placing a special focus on the French recipes,” Galissant said to the newspaper. “Blanquette de veau, lemon tart, Paris-Brest.”

The Village’s cooking staff features a trio of acclaimed French chefs: Akrame Benallal, Amandine Chaignot and Alexandre Mazzia. And there’s a boulangerie near the entrance of the Olympic Village, which will offer classes to the athletes and produce more than 2,000 French classics, such as baguettes and pain au chocolat, every day. 

“Every French village has a bakery,” said Guillaume Thomas, a communications officer for the Paris Olympics. “We want people to be able to smell the baguette as they enter,” he told the New York Times.

Olympic Village Dining Hall.

Zhao Wenyu/China News Service/VCG via Getty


The individual Olympic delegations are also providing plenty of their own food to meet their athletes’ needs and provide a taste of home. Mark England, the Chef du Mission for Team Great Britain, said in an interview with Sky Sports that the country is bringing along their own caterers.

“We’ve brought our own chefs in specifically to ensure that the nutritional value of that which the athletes are consuming is the right quantity,” he told the outlet. 

Team USA Olympic Village Director Daniel Smith tells PEOPLE that the American delegation has shipped certain foods to Paris for the games. He added that individual teams have different policies for food and drink surrounding the competition — for example, American athletes aren’t permitted to drink in their section of the Village. 

“It is a dry Village for Team USA,” Smith says. 



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