‘The village is a mad place’
At Beijing and Rio, though, I was right in the thick of it. As a young man of 23, I had never seen anything like the village in Beijing. The size of the food hall! As big as a football pitch, with food from all over the world. From simple chicken breast, to sushi, to glistening pots of crème brûlée. But the biggest collective appetite was directed towards the fully operating McDonald’s.
There would be huge queues for it, although not for Big Macs. It was the only place in the village where you could get a decent coffee. That said, more and more little red boxes were getting squirted with ketchup and BBQ sauce as the Games went on and the athletes started to finish their competitions. There was a McDonald’s in Rio, too, but it was much smaller and outside of the village. It was like a tiny kiosk. It wasn’t as imposing as Beijing, but it still widened everybody’s eyes.
It’s kind of hard to describe in detail, but the village is a mad place. It’s like a walled-off community. Getting in and out is difficult, with extremely rigorous security. But I can say that I always felt safe when inside. Nations tend to get put in tower blocks. As GB is a big nation we take up a whole one, but other nations will share. You’ll pass Tom Daley on your way to breakfast and be like ‘Hey Tom. How are you feeling?’ or any random chit-chat colleagues would exchange when passing in an office corridor.
