A reporter asks the world's fastest man what he has for breakfast, an important question because, as nutritionists are forever telling you, breakfast is the most important meal of the day.
"I never have breakfast," Usain Bolt says.
There goes the Wheaties box.
Maybe the problem is simply scheduling. Bolt sleeps in until 11, after the breakfast bars have shut down.
The Jamaican sprinter gets up, watches a couple of hours of TV, then eats lunch.
"Some nuggets," he says.
Chicken nuggets.
Goes back to his room after lunch and naps because, well, he's been up since 11.
Gets up after a couple hours, thinks about eating and makes his decision:
"Get some more nuggets."
If food is fuel, a couple of the greatest Olympians here are running on something less than premium.
Take Michael Phelps' 12,000-calorie-a-day diet, which you can find in his autobiography, "Beneath the Surface."
Breakfast: Three fried egg sandwiches with cheese, tomatoes and lettuce, and that's just the appetiser; fried onions and mayo; three chocolate chip pancakes; a five-egg omelet; three slices of French toast; bowl of grits; two cups of coffee, apparently to keep from choking.
Lunch: A pound of enriched pasta, two large ham-and-cheese sandwiches on white bread with mayo; energy drinks.
Dinner: Another pound of pasta, maybe some carbonara sauce to dress it up; large pizza; more energy drinks.
"I eat pretty much whatever I want," is how Phelps puts it, and unnecessarily, I think.
Nutritionists tell us that Phelps can eat like Elvis without fear of beaching himself on the Water Cube because he works out five hours a day, six days a week and is blessed with an unearthly metabolism. A normal male adult who consumes 12,000 calories daily would gain three pounds a day.
But Phelps' hummingbird metabolism allows him to burn a thousand calories an hour while training.
You and I couldn't burn a thousand calories an hour if we set ourselves on fire.
But Phelps, a sinewy 6-4 and 187 pounds, can hardly keep it on, the way he incinerates fat.
As it turns out, Phelps' diet - Boy Gorge, was the headline in The New York Post - has Olympic precedence.
Actual research by National Geographic turned up reporting by Theodorus of Hierapolis in his work "On Athletic Contests," which looked at the diet of ancient Olympians, in particular a wrestler who competed in six of the early Games:
Milon of Croton used to eat 20 pounds of meat and as many of bread, and he drank three pitchers of wine. And at Olympia he put a four-year-old bull on his shoulders and carried it around the stadium; after which, he cut it up and ate it all alone in a single day.(no ital)
Moral: If you eat an entire bull at one sitting then, yes, you can probably expect to eat alone.
Phelps' everything-goes diet causes some nutritionists concern, even if it doesn't seem to be slowing him down. They worry about his cardiovascular system. They note that he could consume the same number of calories with healthier choices. Mix in some fruit. Maybe a salad.
The same goes for Bolt. But who can tell you anything when you're tall and lean and can run 9.69 over 100 metres on nothing but fried chicken?
Still, life has a way of catching up with all of us, even the swift.
Roy Martin was a fine physical specimen when he ran in the '88 Olympics, and he goes about 290 now.
The Robot was a devotee of McDonald's, too.
As for Phelps, he won't always train five hours a day. In fact, as soon as he gets home with all his medals, he's taking a break.
"What I'm looking forward to," he says, "is not doing anything.
"Just sitting."
Not eating.
Milon of Croton? Greek legend has it that he was eaten by wolves, probably because he didn't eat them first.
