Elite Vegan Athletes & what makes them switch to a plant-based diet?

Who would have thought a decade ago that top elite athletes would be performing at the elite end of their profession without eating the traditional meat-based diets? Vegan athletes would never have been taken seriously. But we now have top vegan runners, footballers and tennis players. They adopt a vegan fitness regime and can extend their careers further than was previously thought possible. 

There are many famous athletes and sports stars who are vegan. The list may surprise you. 

Here are some of the news stories we have reported on: 

• NBA superstar John Salley says that since an athlete’s body is like a high octane machine, that in future “smart athletes” will be vegan;
• the vegan mountaineer Kuntal Joisher has scaled Mount Everest before but this time he’s done it in 100% animal-free kit;
• Arnold Schwarzenegger and his co-producers including James Cameron have teamed up to announce The Game Changers documentary about the success of sports stars adopting a plant-based diet;
• the world’s greenest football club, Forest Green Rovers FC, has unveiled another pioneering landmark: the world’s first bamboo football kit;
• the newly-crowned men’s Wimbledon Champion, a five-time winner now, Novak Djokovic maintains a plant-based diet;
• England’s record breaking fast bowler, 37-year-old James Anderson, is seriously considering going vegan to prolong his career after watching The Game Changers documentary;
• BBC Sport’s investigation into Football Going Vegan features Forest Green Rovers FC;
• Five time Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton, who wishes he’d gone vegan earlier since it has helped his sporting performance, urges fans to go plant-based to save our planet;
• India’s cricket captain, Virat Kohli, has “never felt better since” going vegan;
• the motor sport Formula One is to rebrand itself as an ecological champion and go carbon neutral by 2030 to help combat climate change;
• Darius Boyd, the captain of the rugby league side the Brisbane Broncos, has gone vegan after watching the Game Changers and urges his teammates to join him; 
• the Brisbane Broncos have issued a strongly worded statement to coounter any incorrect media impression that the club is endorsing veganism and expressly states how much it values its meat suppliers; 
• four-time Tour de France winner, Chris Froome announces that he has gone vegan after watching The Game Changers documentary;
• the Guinness World Records blog features eleven vegan sports stars who have featured as world record holders, five of whom appeared in The Game Changers and a feature on tennis champions, Serena and Venus Williams.