The daily diet of champions: What some of the world's best athletes eat to perform at their best 

The world’s best athletes have never stumbled upon gold medals and world records.

Countless hours are put into not only practising their sport, but also understanding how to optimise their performance mentally and nutritionally, while maintaining balance in their lives.

It’s also no secret that among and even within sports, there is no one-size-fits-all method on how to eat to become an Olympic champion. Some athletes prioritise a high-protein, low-sugar diet, some are all about the carbs and if you’re Michael Phelps, sometimes you need 10,000 calories a day to meet your nutritional goals.

• Michael Phelps' 10000 calories diet: What the American swimmer ate while training for Beijing Olympics?

Olympics.com spoke to athletes about their diets ahead of the 2023 Pan American Games, so here is some insight into the daily diets of some of the world’s best athletes.

Lee Kiefer - Fencing

Everything in moderation is the theme of Olympic champion and medical school student Lee Kiefer’s diet as a top ranked foil fencer.

“I’m five foot four [inches] and 115 pounds; you would probably be surprised by how much I consume…I get hangry,” Kiefer laughed. She and her husband, four-time Olympian Gerek Meinhardt, go to the U.S. Training Center once a year to consult with a nutritionist on how to fuel their performance. It is not an overly strict regimen for the athlete, as she recognises that cutting too intensely can lead to unhealthy eating habits including over-restriction and binging.

The night before a big match, she likes to have lean protein with rice and vegetables before waking up to eat fruit, eggs and yogurt with “a lot of coffee” the morning of. Her current favorite sweet treat: Crumbl Cookies, a brand of cookies that changes its menu weekly, often with new flavors.

Maggie Mac Neil - Swimming

Maggie Mac Neil has been one of the faces of the 2023 Pan American Games and she came to dominate. Already a three-time Olympic and 19-time world championship medalist, she has taken five golds to set the record for most wins by a Canadian at a single Pan Am Games.

The good news for us: even the world’s best athletes eat ice cream. The food at the Santiago 2023 athletes village has been “great” so far, she said, apart from the fact that there haven’t been any desert options. “I’m very much an ice cream girl,” she told Olympics.com in an exclusive interview ahead of competition in Santiago.

When she travels internationally to compete, Mac Neil enjoys the balance of trying foods from different cultures and eating to make her body feel good ahead of races.

Tammara Thibeault - Boxing

Canadian boxer and 2022 middleweight world champion Tammara Thibeault is a vegetarian.

“It was about the ecology, also I just wanted to try it ever since I was young,” she told Olympics.com in an exclusive interview ahead of the 2023 Pan American Games. She wanted to diversify the things that she was eating while maintaining optimal health and found that eating a vegetarian diet checked all of her boxes. Although she was very strict with it for a couple of years, today she is more ‘lenient’ when she travels because when she is competing all over the world, it can be tough to meet her protein needs without eating meat.

Joel Williamson - Boxing

Guyanese boxer Joel Williamson described his diet as “a lot of fruits and less sugar.”

Competing in the 63.5kg weight class at the 2023 Pan American Games, he explained how boxers often have to cut weight. “Your body starts changing during that time and you can feel weak if you eat the wrong stuff,” he told Olympics.com. When explaining his strategy, he said “If you are natually six foot three and you [weight] the same like six foot five, when you come down you don’t feel that weak; you will just get stronger.”

Jesse Grupper - Climbing

Jesse Grupper had a spectacular win on the third day of sport climbing’s Pan American debut. He made up for a 15.1 point deficit from the top boulder finisher by scaling the lead wall with near perfection and returning to the ground with a full audience chanting his name.

When asked how he was going to celebrate, he said he and his team discovered a “really good gluten-free dinner spot,” and that he was going to have a slice of cake ‘or two.’ The 26-year-old climber eats a pescatarian and gluten-free diet and his favorite meal is either a pad-thai or salmon teriyaki.