I was reading on another forum about why more athletes don’t stop eating meat to improve their performance. It quickly declined into woo territory, but it did bring up a legitimate question. Do any noteable athletes refuse to eat meat or animal products? And if they do, how has it affected their perfomance?
Found this list:
http://www.cheatsheet.com/health-fitness/10-male-athletes-you-didnt-know-were-vegan.html/?a=viewall
Of them, the only ones I’ve heard of are Carl Lewis and Mike Tyson (and Tyson apparently went vegan after retiring).
The best known vegetarian athlete may be Tony Gonzalez, who will probably make the pro football Hall of Fame in a few years. One of the best tight ends ever.
Here are some more athletes who are vegetarians. Bill Walton is probably the best-known. The most surprising one to me is professional wrestler Walter “Killer” Kowalski.
Not mentioned in either list is British distance runner Mo Farah, who with several Olympic and World Championship gold medals must be managing OK.
Also professional wrestler Bryan “Daniel Bryan” Danielson.
Heh. Either you post to hfboards, or the proponent of said woo did a drive-by of a number of forums at once.
40 years ago there was a baseball player named Rodney Scott who went vegetarian during his career. Fast runner but his hitting declined. Which may not have been related to his diet, it happens a lot and second basemen like Scott was seem to be prone to injuries like runners crashing into them when they are attempting to turn a double play.
There are a number of vegans/vegetarians in ultra running. You see Vegan Power shirts at almost every race.
He currently is I believe, but when touring 300 days a year, he gave it up because it was too hard to get regular vegan meals.
Former Montreal Canadiens tough guy Georges Laraque went vegan after watching a movie about cruelty to animals. Many other vegan athletes are featured on the site.
I came in to mention those two. Kowalski didn’t have to travel as much or work as hard as Bryan so I can see he’d have to go with what he could get on the road. Kowalski may have had to do the same thing from time to time also.
Oddball former American football player Ricky Williams. I’d say his love of things “green” did affect his career, but maybe not in the way the OP is asking.
What surprised me recently was that Olympic weightlifter Kendrick Farris is vegan. It doesn’t seem to cause him any problems. He isn’t even all that concerned about his protein intake.
Don’t post, but definately do lurk.
Professional wrestler Austin Aries has been vegan since 2011 apparently.
Wilson Chandler of the Denver Nuggets has been vegan for about six months
[QUOTE=kenobi 65;19832291… Mike Tyson (and Tyson apparently went vegan after retiring).[/QUOTE]
I dispute that Tyson is a vegetarian. Or don’t ears count as meat?
This topic came up in a thread earlier this year. Back then, I wrote:
I seem to recall that former NHL center Bob Bassen was a vegetarian when he played for the Blues. I thought I remembered one of the St. Louis sports writers ribbing him about it. I tried to confirm that but couldn’t find a cite.
I loved Bob Bassen. He was one of my favorite players when I used to be a big hockey fan.
I tried to find something to support this but was not successful so I’ll pose it as a question. I have a memory of reading that Bill Walton, after he retired from basketball, learned that a lack of protein in his diet had been a contributing factor to his orthopedic problem. And he even did some advertising for the beef industry. Anyone else remember this? Or did I see this in National Lampoon or the Onion?