Eat-out ban for Olympic athletes reflects safety reality

Clean meat assured for athletes

"No athletes can go out for meals without permission. We have to be that strict due to the food safety issue," Xiao Haopeng, chief of the Chinese shooting team, told the Beijing News.

"Under special circumstances when athletes have to eat outside of training grounds, they are only allowed to eat vegetables and staple food, and must report exactly what they have eaten for each meal," he said.

According to Xiao, the General Administration of Sport has appointed special meat suppliers for all sport teams.

The administration has ordered players not to eat pork, beef and mutton outside their training camps, and all meat products delivered from appointed suppliers must be handed over to the doping control center for further testing before they go to the kitchen.

In the canteen of the training headquarters of the administration, located in Beijing, all meat, vegetables, cooking oils, dairy product and staple foods are specially procured, and their sources can be traced should any problems emerge, the Beijing News reported.

The national marathon team, which trains for the Olympics in Lijiang, Yunnan Province, has no special athlete canteen, and so acquires free-range, chemical-free chickens from local families and keeps them in a contracted restaurant as their meat reserve.

The newly adopted rules are aimed at preventing athletes from falling victim to clenbuterol, commonly known as lean meat powder, which can cause vomiting, dizziness and lethargy.

In one recent case, Sun Longjiang, a competitive speed skater, was temporarily suspended and his 2011 national speed skating gold medal was revoked, even though an investigation found that Sun accidentally ate pork contaminated with the notorious meat additive, and was not purposefully responsible.

Long-standing issue

The news about Olympic athletes' special treatment triggered a new wave of concern over China's food safety, as many are upset that without a private animal farm, Chinese people en masse will be forced to assimilate the lean meat powder.

"The fact that only top athletes have access to healthy meat products reflects how grave our food safety problem has become," said Li Youyou, a Beijing resident.