day. For the younger athletes it's an exciting new experience, says sports scientist Jess Corones, who works with the Australian Olympic swim team. It's all free. There's thousands of athletes and there's pretty much every kind of cuisine that you could possibly want. There's a stand that gives you unlimited McDonald's, there's machines that pump out unlimited amounts of soft drinks for you. That's exciting and it can be a distraction for them. They think, Oh this is so cool,and they just run to it -- but you have to remind them that it 'll still be there when they 've finished competing and that until they 've finished competing they 've got to stay on their normal routine. What passes for normal can vary wildly. Phelps, after winning a record eight gold medals at Beijing 2008, told NBC that he gorged on carbohydrate-heavy pasta and pizza at the height of his extreme training. Jamaica's 100-meter world champion Blake says he eats so many bananas to keep up his potassium levels. British weightlifter Jake Oliver says that every morning he drinks a shake containing colostrum -- a protein-rich form of milk produced during the late stages of cowspregnancy. I 've tried to get people to try it, but they wo n't. Just the smell of it is enough to put people off, he told UK newspaper The Guardian. Or even Japan's former Olympic marathon champion Naoko Takahashi, a diminutive runner