British boxer opposes gigantic, two-story McDonald’s slated for Olympic Village

No, British WBA World super lightweight boxing champion Amir Kahn will not be having fries with that. McDonald’s, which has been a sponsor at the Summer Olympics since 1976, is planning a humungous restaurant at the London Olympic Village for the 2012 Games. In fact it will be the biggest McDonald’s in the world at 3,000 square feet, two-stories with 1,500 seats. But that’s a bad message to be sending to young people says Kahn, who is in Las Vegas preparing for his light welterweight showdown with Zab Judah on Saturday.

“It is clearly sending the wrong signal to kids and young people. If we want them to be healthy and educate them to eat healthily, we need to think about approaching them in a different way, especially around sport,” said Khan, who won silver at the Athens Olympics in 2004 and is in Las Vegas preparing for his light welterweight clash with Zab Judah on Saturday.

“The Olympics are a great opportunity to show young people what types of food they need in different aspects of their lives. I think this is a mistake.”

This will be a great disappointment to Michael Phelps.

There will actually be four McDonald’s outlets in the village, including one in the media center, that will serve an estimated 1.7 million meals (all but 120 of them in the media center). But The London organizing committee defended their decision to make McDonald’s their fast food overlord:

“McDonald’s is a long-term Olympic sponsor of the Olympic movement and has been an Olympic partner for many years, but we will make sure that a wide variety of food is available in the Olympic Park,” said a spokesman.

This sounds like my last trip to the state fair: ‘OK sure, there’s places where you can buy deep fried butter wrapped in bacon. But we also have a salad bar!’

In their further defense, McDonald’s is planning to use these Olympics to prove to the world how diverse and nutritious their menu actually is. Pay no attention to the processed cow parts smothered in cheese. They also have apple wedges. Oh, and Dana Torres, who says that McDonald’s at the Olympics always reminded her of home.

To emphasize the importance of McDonald’s presence at past games, former Olympic athletes U.S. swimmer Dana Torres, U.K. track star Dean Macey and U.S. soccer player Julie Foudy were present on a McDonald’s corporate webcast on Wednesday morning to describe how visiting the McDonald’s facility in the Olympic village gave them a sense of “home.”

Torres will also serve as the global ambassador for McDonald’s major kids initiative, Champions of Play, surrounding the games, which encourages a balanced approach to nutrition and activity for children. The Champions of Play program will involve grassroots activities for kids aged 6-10, giving up to 200 of them (and their guardians) a chance to travel to the Olympic Games and have the opportunity to interact with athletes at the games.

Idea for McDonald’s kids’ Olympic activity placemat: Where did the cow go? Use crayon to trace the path the cow took to leave the barn, munch grass in the field, be herded onto the truck and … hey, where did the cow go? Also available: Let’s watch a Chicken McNugget get made!

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London 2012 Olympics: king-size McDonald’s in the Games park sends out wrong message, insists Amir Khan [Daily Mail]
McDonald’s Has Olympic-sized Plans For London [Marketing Daily]
McDonald’s Uses Olympics for Its Own Balancing Act [New York Times]