Chocolate muffins and winning pastries at the Olympic Village

But the gold medal came as a surprise: it was the American-inspired chocolate muffin that went viral on social media.

Norwegian swimmer Henrik Christiansen has been dubbed the “Muffin Man” after posting a series of videos featuring the “chocolate muffin” that racked up millions of views on TikTok. He gave it a “crazy” 11/10 star rating.

“It was an unreal experience,” Christiansen told The Associated Press on Saturday.

“I never imagined it would become this big, but it’s fun,” said Christiansen, who swam in the 800-meter freestyle, 1,500-meter freestyle and 10-kilometer marathon races.

As an endurance athlete, he said he could afford to eat high-calorie foods — like the dense chocolate muffin studded with chocolate chunks — every day.

During the two and a half weeks he spent at the Olympic Village in the northern Paris suburb of Saint-Denis, Christiansen ate “seven or eight” of the muffins known for their gooey fudge centers.

“It’s not a big deal,” he said. “I think people will be disappointed when they find out it’s not five a day.”

Approximately 40,000 meals are served each day of the Games to thousands of athletes from more than 200 countries and territories staying in the Olympic Village.

The bakery has become a meeting point for many, said head baker Tony Doré.

Doré and his team produce fresh baguettes — added to the UN’s list of intangible cultural heritage in 2022 — and a variety of other baked goods made daily on site.

“It’s incredible,” Doré said, describing how quickly athletes adopted the very French habit of receiving their fresh baguette every morning.

Most of them “had never tasted a fresh baguette out of the oven. Inevitably, they come back and are enchanted by this bread,” he explains. “Today, some teams come back every day and say, ‘Your baguette is great, it’s incredible and it smells so good.’”

Another flagship product, Doré said, is the “pain au cacao” created especially for the Olympics – essentially a piece of double-chocolate French bread, but with less sugar and butter to better fit the athletes’ diets.

Some also tried the French breakfast: fresh bread with butter and jam, croissants and other pastries.

American athletes such as Simone Biles, the most decorated gymnast of all time, and sprinter Fred Kerley, a bronze medalist in the 100 meters, have come to the bakery, Doré said. Others have participated in bread-making classes held daily.

Philipp Würz, head of catering for the Paris 2024 Olympics organising committee, said the village’s team of four bakers are producing around 600 baguettes and 900 cocoa loaves every day, quantities that are exceeding initial plans due to growing demand.

“It is one of our prides to have insisted on local French bread,” said Würz.

The chocolate muffins made by another local producer, whose production reached 4,000 per day, were, however, unmatched.

Other pastries on offer include custard tart, vanilla tartlet, Paris-Brest (choux pastry filled with praline cream) and lemon tart. The bakery will also be open for the Paralympic Games, which begin on August 28.

“I expect a wave of athletes because they are already aware,” said Doré, the head baker.

For everyone else, the recipe for the now world-famous chocolate muffin was posted on TikTok, Christiansen said, hoping to recreate it at home himself.