It looks like Olympic athletes are huge fans of McDonald’s. Who would have though? It doesn’t hurt of course that there’s a McDonald’s giving away free foot at the Rio’s Olympic Village, but we doubt if that’s the reason for the unusual popularity of the burgers and fries. We’re pretty sure that the Olympic village offers other dining alternatives.

In spite of the limited menu, athletes and coaches alike are so enthusiastic about the place that McDonald’s ended up placing a limit of – wait for it – 20 items per person. Rumors state that the Chinese basketball team dines there every day, all day, gobbling Big Macs at 9:00 in the morning.

How is this popularity explained? Well, for starters, McDonald’s is the only fast-food restaurant in the Olympic village and its only real competition is the cafeteria. That’s not much of a competition. Additionally, athletes might not be eager to risk their digestion by trying unfamiliar, local food.

If some athletes might be skeptic, all they need to do is look at Usain Bolt, who stated back in 2013 that he consumed around 1,000 nuggets during 10 days in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. He said at some point he ate McNuggets for breakfast, lunch and dinner, topping it off with fries and the famous McDonald’s apple pie. He said he simply found the local food “odd”.

On Saturday, an Australian badminton player named Sawan Serasinghe experienced a bitter loss which ended his chance to win a medal in Rio. He then treated himself to a huge McDonald’s feast in what seems to be an inconceivably large comfort food meal. In an image uploaded to Facebook, Serasinghe is seen with six burgers, four packs of chicken nuggets, no less than six packs of fries and, for desert, six cakes.

Sadly, gobbling up McDonald’s is not likely to turn you into Olympic athletes, but at iFOREX you can start your own training to become an online trader. Schedule a personal training session with a trading coach and get started.