Dec. 5—MITCHELL — For elite athletes, what ends up on their plate when it’s time to eat is not a coincidence.Olympians Chris Nilsen and DeAnna Price can attest to that. They spoke to an audience of about 50 DWU students and coaches on Wednesday at the Sherman Center on behalf of South Dakota Beef and the organization’s Build Your Base program, which was touring colleges and schools around the state.”Being able to pass on the knowledge that we’ve learned so that they can avoid the mistakes that we’ve made or do things even better, that’s a great thing,” Price said. “To push that barrier just a little bit farther. … This program has just been one of the greatest opportunities because it gives me the chance and opportunity to go and talk to kids. I wish I had someone like that coming to my school when I was younger to be like, Oh, wow, that’s something I can do.”Nilsen and Price spoke for nearly an hour and then answered 1-on-1 questions after the session for another 30 minutes. Nilsen said he believes strongly in passing along his personal experience and sharing any tips he can, ranging from training to nutrition or travel.”I would want a professional athlete in the sport that I do to tell me why he thinks this specific thing is important and that person has more real-life experience than I do,” he said. “And the experiences that I’ve had with the Build Your Base program were helpful to me as an athlete. At the barest level, they helped me with my nutrition, and that was what was important to me. That’s what I was suffering a lot with when I was in college. And that’s why I’m here, to try to implore these kids to just, not just go and eat beef but just eat better in general, so that their athletic careers can flourish as mine did.”As Nilsen puts it, he’s essentially the largest pole vaulter in the world at 6-foot-5 and 215 pounds. Pole vault is a speed and power event and he said he trains like a sprinter, while actual vaulting practice is limited to once or twice a week. The 27-year-old was a three-time collegiate national champion at the University of South Dakota and has transitioned to being one of the best pole vaulters in the world, including a silver-medal finish at the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2021.Nilsen said that athletes are looking for as many extras as they can: extra rest, extra recovery, extra training and extra nutrition. He said he’s found it to be most rewarding to experiment with his meals within the goals of getting proteins and storing enough energy for what can be long competition days.Price is a three-time Olympian, competing in 2016, 2021 and 2024, including eighth-place finishes in Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo. She threw an American record 80.31 meters (263.48 feet) at the U.S. Olympic Trials in 2021 — which is the third-farthest throw in the world — and she has the world indoor record in the weight throw at 26.02 meters (85 feet, 4.25 inches) set in 2023 in Albuquerque, N.M.She can generate speeds of up to 70 mph when she torques herself to throw what she calls as the equivalent of an iron skillet weighing 8.8 pounds.She’s also overcome a litany of serious injuries and only has one kidney. She broke her ankle before the Olympic trials in 2021 that led to tendon tears and breaking the tip of her fibula and needing reconstructive surgery up to her hip. Price credits being able to recover and rehab for her injuries much quicker due to her diet.The calendar soon flipping to 2026 brings the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles ever closer, and the games are a top goal for both athletes. Price, 32, grew up in Missouri near St. Louis and is looking to make her fourth Olympic games in 2028. She intends for it to be her final Olympics and admitted she might be retired already if the prospect of an Olympic games in the U.S. wasn’t still out there.”I’ve been going since 2011 throwing the hammer,” she said. “It’s been a great run for me. I’ve done some amazing things. I just feel like just kind of top it off, I want to be in L.A. That’s for sure a motivator.”Nilsen said he had a dream Olympics in 2021 and a non-successful Games in 2024 when he battled some injuries, and now he’s hoping to combine the experience from both to take to a third Olympics. He knows getting there will be tough, as well.”I had more nervousness, and I enjoyed winning the Olympic trials in 2021 and 2024 more than going to the Olympics. I didn’t care that I was at the Olympics. I cared more that I won the Olympic trials, which sounds backwards,” Nilsen said. “But for me, that was harder than the Olympics. Getting to the Olympics was harder than being at it. So I’m just excited to go and compete in that kind of field again.”The visit was part of their tour of South Dakota colleges and high schools with the Build Your Base program, the sports nutrition program that utilizes beef in preparing athletes for successful sports performance. Build Your Base is promoted by Beef Logic, the nonprofit organization that promotes the positive benefits of beef and is supported by the South Dakota Beef Industry Council.Nilsen said sponsorships aren’t as easy as they seem to come, even as he’s one of the very few pole vaulters in the world sponsored by Nike. He said there’s a little special pride when he’s able to compete in an event where he can wear a uniform that has a South Dakota Beef logo.”We have managers and agents but for the most part, you have to go out and find them yourself,” he said. “And thankfully, because I live and train in South Dakota, I was able to get in touch with the South Dakota Beef folks and they’ve been very helpful.”Other stops on the tour through central South Dakota included Wessington Springs and Northwestern on Thursday and Ipswich, Leola and Northern State University on Friday.