Lots of of baguettes are baked each day throughout the Olympic Village to serve the greater than 15,000 competing athletes, however one baked good appears to have all of them in an uproar. And it’s not even French.  

The so-called Olympic Muffin Man Henrik Christiansen, a 27-year-old swimmer for Group Norway, is documenting his love for a selected gooey chocolate muffin served on the Olympic Village with a sequence of TikToks professing his adoration of the deal with. 

Six days in the past, after a few of his first meals on the Olympic Village in Paris, Christiansen posted that the “choccy muffin” ranked an 11/10  and was “insane.” In comparison with his 7/10 score of fettuccine with a pile of pesto and a pork skewer and a 6/10 hen gyoza, which might’t examine to the model he tried in Tokyo three years in the past, this muffin ranks amongst his finest bites ever. 

By the following day, Friday, July 26, Christiansen posted a video devoted to the muffin, calling it “the only best factor concerning the Olympic Village up to now.” He additionally posted a video showcasing the chocolate muffin’s gooey heart and chocolate smeared on his face, with a caption in Norwegian, saying, “Excited to see if this reaches a global viewers.” With greater than 166,000 likes and a section on the Right this moment Present, it’s protected to say it has.

Inside days, Christiansen grew to become a full-on muffin influencer, posting TikTok memes of himself having fun with the muffin across the Olympic Village and formally declaring himself the Olympic Muffin Man on Sunday.

If different athletes can’t get their arms on the coveted chocolate muffin, it might be as a result of Christiansen has a drawer filled with them in his room.

After competing in Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020, that is Christiansen’s third Olympics, however his first falling in love with a bakery deal with. In Rio, he got here in eighth for the 1,500-meter freestyle race, ranked quantity 17 for the ​​400-meter Freestyle competitors, and quantity 40 for the 200-meter freestyle. In 2020, he didn’t advance to the finals or semifinals however was ninth for males’s 800-meter freestyle within the first warmth. He was ranked 21 for each the 400-meter freestyle and 1500-meter freestyle. He’s competed in a single race up to now within the Paris video games — the Males’s 800 m freestyle. He ranked twenty fifth and received’t advance with a time of 8:00.55. 

Christiansen nonetheless has two occasions within the video games: the boys’s 1500-meter freestyle on Saturday, July 3, and the 10km Open Water race on Friday, August 9. Will the additional week of consuming chocolate muffins gasoline him to his first medal? Or is the considerable chocolatey deal with sufficient of a win for the aquatic athlete? It would not matter as a result of he’ll all the time rank first in our hearts for his love of muffins. 

Christiansen posted a brand new video on July 31, boldly snubbing the French ache au chocolate in favor of his beloved muffin. We’ll see how that pans out for him in Paris and whether or not the Olympic caterer, Sodexo, will drop the muffin recipe.