The Paris Olympics are off to a “grate” start for Italian gymnast Giorgia Villa. After helping the Italian team win their first silver medal since 1928 in women’s gymnastics, Villa was seeing a bright future for her gymnastics career. Little did she know that it would be getting cheesier as well.
Villa went viral on social media after getting on the podium for Italy for the Team All-Around Final, but also for some really cheesy pictures of her partnership with Parmigiano Reggiano. Villa can be seen taking a bite out of a brick of cheese while on a gymnastics beam, doing a split across multiple cheese wheels, and even hugging a huge wheel of cheese in her arms. She has taken X by storm as users have been obsessing over this bizarre brand deal, making many fans wonder how the sponsorship came to be for this Olympian.
When did Villa secure this brand deal?
Villa signed a sponsorship with these iconic parmesan cheese producers three months before the start of the Tokyo Olympics. She took to posting on platforms like Instagram and TikTok during April of 2021, where she can be seen posing in her leotard and doing extravagant tricks with a cheese wheel always by her side. With captions confessing her love for this parmesan, Villa has gained almost 100K followers and has become a new face for Italian culture within the Olympics.
Does Parmigiano Reggiano have other athletes looking sharp?
Parmigiano Reggiano has partnered with a variety of other Italian athletes over time who have professed their love for this brand and its Parmesan. Jannik Sinner, professional Italian tennis player, became the face of Parmesan back in 2020 in the early stages of his career. Italian fencer Matteo Neri and paralympic swimmer Giulia Ghiretti also worked with the cheese brand. Italian basketball player, Nico Mannion, who started his career in the NBA playing for the Golden State Warriors, also took his spot on the Parmigiano Reggiano team.
It remains unclear whether Villa is still under contract with the Reggiano brand, but she is added onto a list full of fellow athletes at the Paris Olympics who are going viral for their foodie fascinations.
Henrik Christiansen, an Olympic swimmer from Norway, has yet to score a brand deal but has won the hearts of TikTok users everywhere since obsessing over the double-chocolate chunk muffins served at the Olympic village. Christiansen has made these muffins his personality trait and has added a comedic twist to his content which basically confesses his love for this sweet treat. Overall, people are starting to realize that these all-star athletes might just be as obsessed with food as we are.