Before sports drinks, energy bars and carbohydrate-loading, there were figs, cheese and dates, simple fare for the Olympic athletes of ancient Greece. But during the past century of the modern Olympics, nutrition science and the Games have grown in sophistication as the world's elite athletes and their trainers sought new ways to achieve ultimate performance. "Diet and training were issues for athletes even in antiquity," said Louis Grivetti, a University of California, Davis, professor of nutrition and co-coordinator of a special symposium highlighting the relationship between nutrition and the modern Olympics. The symposium, titled "Nutritional and Physical Performance: a Century of Progress and Tribute to the Modern Olympic Movement," will be hosted by the American Institute of Nutrition from 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Monday, April 15, in the Washington, D.C. Convention Center as part of the international Experimental Biology '96 meeting. "The scientists and former Olympic athletes participating in the symposium will highlight the progress that has been made in the fields of athletic training, diet and nutrition, and sports medicine," said Grivetti. The following scientists will speak from 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.: • Grivetti will open the symposium, explaining training and food-related practices of ancient Greek and Roman athletes. He also will discuss the past century of medical, nutritional and physiological research related to the Olympics, focusing on research conducted on athletes at the 1936 Berlin games. • Elizabeth Applegate, symposium co-coordinator as well as an award-winning tri-athlete and UC Davis nutrition lecturer, will explore dietary fads used through the centuries by athletes. She will contrast these historical accounts with scientific data on a range of products and dietary supplements used by modern elite athletes. • Ann Grandjean is director of the International Center for Sports Nutrition in Omaha, Neb., and a consultant to the U.S. Olympic Committee. She will discuss training approaches used by athletes during the past century and compare those techniques with contemporary nutrition and physiology research findings. • Charles Tipton is a professor of physiology and surgery and director of the Animal Exercise Research Laboratory at the University of Arizona, Tucson. He will describe approaches used by physicians and physiologists during the 19th and early 20th centuries to maintain athletes' health and rehabilitate them following injuries. He will compare these techniques to modern sports medicine. The scientific presentations will be followed by a "Gold Medal Roundtable" featuring a panel of former Olympic athletes. Below are brief descriptions of some of these participants. • Billy Mills won the 10,000-meter race in Tokyo and was a member of the U.S. Olympic marathon team that year. He will discuss his experiences and training, with an emphasis on diet. • Bruce Baumgartner is regarded by some to be the greatest U.S. heavyweight wrestler of all time. He participated in three Olympiads, earning gold medals in Los Angeles in 1984 and in Barcelona in 1992. In 1995 he received the Sullivan Award, the highest honor presented to an American amateur athlete. He will discuss training and dietary issues in wrestlers, especially fluid intake and weight regulation. • Nicole Haislett is a swimmer who earned gold medals at Barcelona in 1992 in the 200-meter medley freestyle and 400-meter medley relay, and as a member of the 400-meter freestyle relay team. She will discuss how athletes can strike a nutritional balance in their diets and how the diet translates into competitive energy. • Alfred Oerter is a discus thrower who is the only athlete to win gold medals at four successive Olympiads, medaling in 1956, 1960, 1964 and 1968. He will address training and diet from the perspectives of his athletic career as an Olympian and Masters athlete.