2007 R&I Ivy Awards: U.S. Olympic Training Center, Colorado Springs, Colo.

The depth and passion of its sense of mission also makes the USOTC different from other foodservice operations.

By Scott Hume, Executive Managing Editor -- Restaurants & Institutions, 5/1/2007

Opened: 1997 Seats: 265 Meals served daily: 1,200 to 1,500 (Colorado Springs) Meals served annually: 800,000 (total for all four training centers) Foodservice staff: 32 Average staff tenure: 9.65 years For Terri Moreman (l.) and Executive Chef Jacque Hamilton and the dining staff, athletes’ nutrition is the sole focus. The dining hall provides athletes nutritious and expertly prepared meals in a relaxed yet upscale environment.

By Scott Hume, Executive Managing Editor

An unwavering commitment to providing the highest-quality food available.

Stop there because that is where comparisons end between the dining operation at the U.S. Olympic Training Center (USOTC) and just about any other foodservice operation. Terri Moreman, associate director for food and nutrition for the U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC), makes daily decisions based on variables with which no one else must contend.

No restaurateur needs to adjust preparation schedules based on how many customers will be weighed that day and thus likely will want light or no breakfast. No college or university foodservice director needs to know if a dozen Korean gymnasts will be in the dining hall this week and will need a customized menu as well as help navigating the serving line (including translation of nutrition information).

But those are the types of information Moreman must absorb and adapt to in planning meals not only for the USOC training center in Colorado Springs but also at smaller facilities in Chula Vista, Calif., and Lake Placid, N.Y., as well as the U.S. Olympic Education Center at Northern Michigan University, Marquette.

"People sometimes try to put us in a box, but it’s very hard to compare what we do to others," says Moreman, who recently completed her 19th year in the post. "I benchmark a little with business-and-industry, and I benchmark with colleges and universities and with restaurants. I try to take a little bit from each to move this operation to its goal."

The depth and passion of its sense of mission also makes the USOTC different from other foodservice operations. While a restaurant may feel responsible for its guests’ satisfaction and well being for an evening, Moreman knows that young people’s lives are in her hands.

"We believe that we are responsible for getting every athlete to the podium. When they stand up there, we know we had something to do with their being there with a medal around their necks," she says. "That’s how serious we are about it."

That purposefulness is evident throughout the Colorado Springs center’s 265-seat dining, where walls celebrate past and present U.S. Olympians and posters tout the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing and 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver.

"The Games and their goals are in front of them all the time so they’re constantly thinking about the future," says Moreman. "Everything we do is constantly encouraging the athlete. That’s just the whole environment."

The dining hall’s multi-station servery is all about quality and quantity, with multiple preparations of proteins—from beef, chicken and pork to fish, shrimp and lobster—and lots of fresh produce. Each dish is labeled with detailed nutrition information—calories, carbohydrates, fat, protein and more—developed with the help of nutrition-analysis software and four (soon to be five) dietitians on the 32-person dining staff. Moreman works with a basic seven-week cycle menu, longer than those at colleges or hospitals.

What athletes choose to eat is up to them, with decisions influenced by their personal, team and individual sports federation coaches and dietitians. "If you’re a weightlifter you’re going to eat more and differently than a gymnast. You build your plate, your tray, your volume throughout the day," Moreman says. "But it doesn’t matter if you’re a gymnast, wrestler, skater or whatever: The same nutritional quality and content will be there. You may just eat different quantities."

An International Destination

Feeding wrestlers on 7,000-calories-a-day regimens can strain food costs, but USOTC never holds back when it comes to grooming future Olympians. "Our bottom line is not profit, it’s service," she says. "You can’t have a healthcare budget with Olympic appetites."

Athletes may be at the Colorado Springs center as briefly as three- to five-day training sessions or be residents who stay for a half or full year (provided they maintain ratings in their sports). And because the center also hosts athletes from around the world, menus necessarily are global in breadth.

"If we know the Koreans are coming in, we’ll try to do some recipes for them. If athletes from the Middle East are in, we’ll adjust to that. We’re constantly engaged in understanding who our customers are at any given time and how to meet that changing mix," she says. "This is an international destination for every sport that wants to come rub shoulders, train and eat with the U.S. team."

The center relies on corporate sponsors to stay afloat financially, and providers’ logos are displayed alongside nutrition information on the serving line. When sponsors come for meetings, they always ask to eat in the dining hall. "Everyone gets the same level of quality and service, whether athlete or sponsor CEO," says Moreman. "Don’t get me wrong; [the CEO] gets a reserved table."

Catering for meetings with sponsors, sport governing bodies and others was outsourced several years ago. Moreman’s staff was handling 1,000 such events a year, and it simply was too much. "Catering can take the strength out of your operation, and the next thing you know, service to the athlete goes down," she says. "Our primary customer is the athlete; that’s our focus."

Planned for implementation later this year are multilingual (adding Spanish and French) plasma-screen menu boards in the dining hall, along with online menus athletes can access wherever they are in the world. From their USOTC dorm room, they can plan a day’s meals; from distant locations they can check nutrition data, communicate with a dietitian and maintain logs of what they eat each day.

Following that, Moreman plans to make nutrition information available to the public. For example, aspiring short-track speed skaters will be able to see what Apolo Anton Ohno ate today and click a menu item for the recipe (which will link to sponsors’ Web sites).

"That’s the caliber of service we’re providing every day. That’s why we come from the Games with more medals than any other country," says Moreman. "We know other countries are pumping a lot of money into their teams, but we believe nutrition is going to make the difference.

"You can build ski slopes and bobsled runs or put all kinds of training into play, but without good nutrition there’s no Olympic medal."