Soccer-Olive oil with a kick seeks to energise Cypriot players

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By Michele Kambas

LARNACA, Cyprus (Reuters) -Soccer players are lining up for a fiery kick – not on the pitch, but in the form of a searing shot of olive oil from Cyprus.

The peppery, throat-burning liquid is part of a performance revolution driven by a small plant in Cyprus that produces early-harvest olive oil packed with inflammation-busting polyphenols.

Soccer players taking the shot are convinced it helps them recover faster and play harder, says olive oil producer Nick Schizas, who used to be a FIFA-licenced agent representing soccer players from across the world.

“They were coming back with much more energy. They were recovering quicker between their games, between their training and without me pushing them they were coming back asking for more,” Schizas said of his old life in soccer.

He has teamed up with soil engineer Nicolas Netien to start a small business marketing oil pods under the Oleaphen brand. They supply sportspeople including soccer players in England’s prestigious Premier League and a cycling team participating in the Tour de France.

The anti-inflammatory and antioxidant benefits come from picking the olives before they are ripe, when they still contain high levels of polyphenols.

Netien and Schizas are producing such oils at an interesting time. Researchers from two Cypriot universities will this year launch clinical studies on the performance of Cypriot soccer players taking doses of high phenolic olive oil, hoping to add to a growing body of evidence on its health potential.

They will also measure the benefits to gut microbiome.

At an olive mill in the Larnaca district, Netien, who says that he has produced oil with the highest recorded polyphenol content, closely follows the extraction process.

Churning produces a polyphenol called Oleocanthal, which he calls “the most natural, powerful anti-inflammatory in the world”.

This early harvest oil contains 30 times more polyphenols than extra virgin olive oil, and 100 times more Oleocanthal. To keep those compounds intact, Oleaphen uses single-dose seaweed-based pods instead of bottles, preventing oxidation and waste.

Netien says what they are doing is a modern revival of an old practice.

“There’s a tradition in the Mediterranean, especially in Greece and Cyprus, of doing some olive oil really early in the season … and this oil was kept at home to be used as a medicine,” he said.

“It’s not new. It’s thousands of years old.”

(Reporting by Michele Kambas; Additional reporting by Yiannis Kourtoglou; Editing by Edward McAllister and Ken Ferris)