Fried chicken and hamburgers, washed down with a few pints, a vodka chaser and followed by the occasional cigarette. It’s the unorthodox recipe for sporting success.
Olympic Games sensation Usain Bolt smashed world records in the 100m, 200m and 4x100m relay in Beijing last summer fuelled by chicken nuggets.
The Jamaican sprint king credited his speed and strength, not to a nutritional regime, meticulously prepared by highly-skilled dieticians -no, just lots and lots of chicken nuggets.
”I woke around 11am and decided to watch some TV and had some nuggets,” said Bolt before his world-record shattering 100m run.
”Then I slept for a couple of hours more. Then I got some more nuggets and came to the track.”
Former England football captain David Beckham also showed his unusual food tastes when he signed for LA Galaxy in 2007.
At his post-debut party, A-list celebrities, such as Tom Cruise, were offered sausages, mashed potatoes, burgers and fries.
The late Canadian snooker player Bill Werbeniuk used to get beer supplied free on medical grounds because of a ”health problem”.
‘Big Bill,’ ranked eighth in the world in 1983, and a four-time world championship quarterfinalist, was noted for the copious amounts of alcohol he consumed before and during matches.
Legend had it that he generally drank around six pints of lager before a match and then one pint for each frame to counter the effects of a tremor.
A Beta blocker propranolol was also taken by Werbeniuk later in his career. In some quarters it was claimed it was to treat the tremor. However, others speculated his heart was under such alcohol-related strain that the drug was needed to treat that.
Some members of the Bulgarian World Cup squad of 1994, which went all the way to the semifinals, were publicly drinking alcohol and smoking between matches.
The team’s backroom staff believed it helped make them more relaxed.
English footballers were once known to be regular junk food and beer-drinking lovers, but over the last decade or so this has been drastically reduced.
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger brought dietary changes in at the Gunners.
The Frenchman learned about diet during his two years in Japan as manager of Grampus 8 in Japan.
”It was the best diet I ever had,” he said of his time there.
”The whole way of life is linked to health. Their diet is basically boiled vegetables, fish and rice. No fat, no sugar. You notice when you live there that there are no fat people. I think in England you eat too much sugar and meat and not enough vegetables.”
Just as well Scottish darts player Jocky Wilson, the 1982 and 1989 world champion, never ventured to Japan.
Before throwing his first dart at any major tournament, he would drink lager chased by ‘seven or eight vodkas’.
”Just to keep my nerves so that I can play my best,” said the Scotsman. – AFP
