Chris Nee
When thousands of Olympic athletes descend on a host city and need the accommodation and entertainment to get them through a pressurised summer in the spotlight, the logistical implications are astonishing.
Joe Rogan certainly thought so. The controversial podcaster learned all about the Olympic village from podcast guest and Olympic wrestler Jordan Burroughs, who won Gold as part of Team USA in London in 2012.
Burroughs, sprint phenomenon Usain Bolt and a reported 16,000 other athletes were accommodated at the Olympic village in East London and the wrestler's attempts to recall the experience gave Rogan plenty to sink his teeth into.
"There are 10,000 athletes and coaches from every country on the face of the planet all put into a one-mile radius on the Olympic campus," said Burroughs on The Joe Rogan Experience.
"There's just so much interaction and engagement. The cafeteria at the Olympic games is five football fields long. They've got a McDonald's, like a full-sized McDonald's, in the cafeteria at the Olympic village. They've got foods from all different parts of the country. You've got an Italian station, a Japanese station, American station, you know, and a pan-African station.
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"It's insane and you literally have thousands of people swirling in at all times."
Access to such a rarefied environment is necessarily restricted and Burroughs told Rogan all about it.
"It's wild, so they're really strict with the way that they administer athletes and [for] people to get in, you have to have a guest list," he added.
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"If you want to get anyone in, they have to be approved seven days in advance. So let's say my wife, I'm like, 'Hey, I want my wife to come into the Olympic village and check out our living space, check out the free McDonald's,' then I have to put her on the list seven days in advance and it has to be approved by the USOPC and then also, you know, the IOC."
Completely taken aback, Rogan sought to confirm with Burroughs that the athletes gathered in McDonald's weren't "getting salads and chicken selects" and acknowledged that it probably makes sense that athletes want to treat themselves after living strictly for the years in between the Games.
Six-time world champion Burroughs continues to compete at the world level. He last claimed Gold in Istanbul in 2022.