Usain Bolt estimated he ate 1,000 McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets during the Beijing Olympics — or 100 per day over 10 days at the Athletes’ Village.
“Honestly, I ate nothing else in all my time out in China except chicken nuggets,” Bolt wrote in “The Fastest Man Alive,” one of his autobiographies. “They were the only food I could properly trust which wouldn’t affect my stomach. On arriving at the [pre-Olympic] training camp I’d tried a local Chinese meal, which wasn’t like the ones we we eat in the West, and my body didn’t react well. So, knowing I could rely on nuggets, i made up my mind that was all I would eat. And eat them I did, for breakfast, lunch and dinner, washed down with bottled water.”
That fueled the Jamaican to break world records in the 100m (9.69 seconds), 200m (19.30) and the 4x100m (37.10, later stripped for Nesta Carter‘s doping) at the 2008 Games. Those on-track exploits are featured in NBCSN’s Olympic Games Week on Tuesday. A full schedule is here.
“Man, I should have gotten a gold medal for all that chowing down,” Bolt reportedly wrote in “Faster than Lightning,” his other autobiography.
When Bolt returned to Beijing for the 2015 World Championships, he again swept the 100m, 200m and 4x100m. But, with a different diet.
“They really are providing a lot better food here than in 2008, so no chicken nuggets for me this year,” he said before that meet.
Bolt’s love for chicken endured. In his last season in 2017, he showed up at group step classes in Jamaica on mornings after fried-chicken dinners.
Even in retirement, he made British tabloids for being spotted ordering inside a Kentucky Fried Chicken.
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