Milk, Calming Cows and Hard Work: How Dairy Farmer Elle Purrier St. Pierre Successfully Chased Her Olympic Dreams
Dairy Report 080321
As the race to capture gold continues in Tokyo this week, Tuesday is the next chance to watch Vermont dairy farmer and Olympic competitor Elle Purrier St. Pierre in action.
The 26-year-old dairy farmer and Olympic athlete easily made it through the preliminary round of the women's 1,500 meter race on Sunday at the Olympics in Tokyo. She's running in the semi-finals Wednesday, with the race are scheduled to take place on Aug. 4 at 6 a.m. ET. If she qualifies, the finals will be held on Friday.
Purrier St. Pierre grew up on a 40-cow operation in Vermont, but never left the farm, as she and her husband still live on a dairy farm today.
She's spent much of her training over the past year-and-a-half in Vermont. The National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) spoke to Elle earlier this year as part of its Dairy Defined podcast.
"I think I didn't really fully realized until college that growing up on a farm was something different or unique and everybody's like, 'wow, you grew up on a farm,'" said Purrier St. Pierre on the NMPF podcast. "It was so strange to them and to me it was just normal was something I was always very proud of. I was proud to say that I was a farm kid. I think the way that I grew up working really hard on the farm is like an asset to my career. It's a skill that I learned from an early age and it's kind of just ingrained in me. That's something that has helped me so much in my career."
The runner says when she's gone from the farm she misses being around the cows, as the animals have a "calming influence" on her.
She says drinking milk is an important part of her training routine, adding that is has the perfect ratio of carbs and protein, especially chocolate milk.
Purrier St. Pierre isn't the only Olympic athlete who prefers to refuel with real milk. Here's a list of athletes who's say milk is their beverage of choice, and a few may surprise you.
