Olympian drowns his sorrows with a ludicriously huge McDonald’s feast

It's a tough life being an Olympian.

You spend four years training hard, sleeping well and eating right for one shot at glory at the Olympic Games. Every minute dietary detail and decision over those 1,460 days building up to the Games can add up to some marginal gains that can be the difference between winning and losing. So when the race is run, the medals are handed out and the show's over for another four years you could forgive the athletes a few days of gorging themselves into a food coma for their efforts. That's exactly what Australian badminton player Sawan Serasinghe did when his Olympics ended in defeat against Chinese Taipei.

"Can't wait to go back home to start training and keep on improving! Just want to say thanks again to everyone back home for the on going support," he put in a Facebook post. "Definitely motivated me to fight hard on court everyday. Now it's time to eat some junk food after months of eating clean!"

He wasn't joking either. The Aussie sportsman marched straight down to McDonald's and ordered what looks like everything on the menu several times over. Laid out in front of his is a jun food feast of six burgers, six servings of fries, four boxes or nuggets and six cakes and a milkshake and some water to wash the whole lot down with. He snapped himself presumably saying goodbye to his abs for a few weeks before he gets back to the grind ready for 2020 again. He's not the only one either. As many of the events reach their conclusion, McDonald's seems to be the place that every elite athlete on the planet is heading. Why? Because the special Maccies in the Olympic villages dishes out whatever you want - for free, according to The Washington Post. Athletes are literally queuing out of the door and down the street to get in there and fill their boots with as much McDonald's as they can carry.

"At the beginning of the Olympics, the lines are short with a few weightlifters, track and field throwers and marathon runners frequenting the Big Macs," five-time Olympic Medallist MelanieWright wrote in News.com.au. "But by the final few days when most sports are finished, they can barely keep up as each athlete lines up to order 27 cheese burgers, 40 chicken McNuggets, 12 sundaes and a Diet Coke before collecting the food and walking away without needing to pay."

Some athletes don't even wait until the Games are over to pig out at the fast food chain. Usain Bolt reportedly ate 100 chicken nuggets a day during the 2008 Beijing Olympics - and just to rub everyone's noses in it went on to win three gold meals in the 100m, 200m and 100m relay, smashing three world and Olympic records in the process. Swimmer Ryan Lochte is also said to have eaten McDonald's at every meal during the Beijing Games - where he bagged no less than four medals. McDonald's a performance food for elite competitors? Who knew. On the latest episode of the GAA Hour Hurling Show Wooly and the lads reflect on a monumental weekend of action. Listen below or subscribe here on iTunes