It is to be expected that even among elite athletes, there is, now and again, an overwhelming urge to break away from the regimented dietary requirements their preparation demands.
As a former Irish Olympians, David Gillick is better placed than most to witness these bad habits first-hand.
Recalling one particular Diamond League meet in New York, two American athletes
summed up the desperation that could set in.
"We went training together the day before," Gillick recalls.
"When we were coming back, the bus stopped at the traffic lights. The two lads hopped out and were straight into McDonalds.
"This was the day before a race!"
Craig Lynch hands over the baton to David Gillick at the 2016 European Athletics Championships in Amsterdam. Image: ©INPHO/Karel Delvoije
In Gillick’s experience, however, athletes won’t always be so brazen with their cheat-eating. Martin Rooney, a former training partner and good friend of Gillicks', offered a telling case and point of this.
"I would have trained and travelled with Rooney for years," Gillick explains.
"I always remember when we were over in America one time, and we were sharing a room.
"Now, I was very much go to bed, ear-plugs in, I’m going to sleep and get my rest, but I could hear this noise, thinking to myself, ‘what is he doing?’
"There he was – and this like probably at midnight – playing his PSP, and then every couple of minutes there was a kind of rustling, and I’d look over and there he was, playing the PSP and eating skittles.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, Gillick now laughs at the lengths Rooney would go to in an effort to keep his sugar-habit under wraps.
"He bought a kilo of raisins, emptied them out and filled it with Skittles - he was eating skittles in front of the coach!" 🗣@DavidGillick on the strange 'dietary requirements' of some of his team-mates ðŸ’
Today's #OTBAM | https://t.co/UgzO08i0Sl | 🎥 pic.twitter.com/MBBLpnqtmh
— Off The Ball (@offtheball) November 15, 2018
"He was picking these skittles out of what looked like a box of raisins," Gillick reveals.
"Because we were living with my coach Nick, Rooney would go straight to the shops, buy 1kg of raisins, chucked all the raisins in the bin and then replaced them all with Skittles.
Barely believable to Gillick at the time, he can look back on it now and laugh; "If it puts a smile on your face, it can’t be that bad."
