Controversy erupts at Olympic Village: "Too much pasta"

Too much pasta in the Olympic Village? Some athletes have complained about the food offered by the organizers of the Milan Cortina 2026 Olympic Games. Among them is figure skater Gleb Smolkin, who complained to Fanpage microphones: “We could not find Russian or Georgian cuisine in the village, nothing like that”.

“The food here is European and at the moment rather monotonous… The pasta is already starting to turn my stomach. In Beijing there was always the same menu for two-three weeks in a row, and it was a little bit’harder for me to digest Asian food. Now it is a little bit’better. They promised to change the menu every five days”.

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The skater&#8217s opinion is not shared by many other athletes, such as star Jutta Leerdam, who instead credited the food in Italy specifically for her gold medal in the 1000 meters: “I have eaten so much pasta here in Italy, and it works”.

Sportal

Many athletes in the past few days have posted videos on Instagram in which they binge on lasagna, spaghetti and desserts, fully endorsing the menu. The favorite dishes, in any case, remain pizza and pasta.

Olympics food and beverage manager Elisabetta Salvadori responded to the complaints this way: “No one is obliged to eat pasta. Pizza and pasta are among the most served and it is there, in the canteens of the various Olympic Villages, where there&#8217s the greatest crowding: if there&#8217s one place where you can create a queue it is at the carbohydrate station. Of course, there’s also rice and other sources of carbohydrates such as potatoes and flatbread; it”s not a forced choice, there are many alternatives”.

The meal areas of the Olympic villages are open 24 hours a day and seat 600 people in Milan, 400 in Cortina and 400 in Predazzo: a total of 4,500 meals a day between breakfast lunches and dinners in Milan, 4,000 in Cortina and 3,000 in Predazzo.