At the U.S. Olympic Committee’s main training facility in Colorado Springs, endurance athletes look to Bob Seebohar, MS, RD, CSSD, CSCS, to help shave a hundredth of a second from their time. While that’s less than a blink of an eye, the science of sports nutrition can separate the medalists from hopefuls. As a sports dietitian with the USOC Performance Services division, Seebohar is a good fit for endurance events given he has coached and participated in triathlon and cycling competitions for 15 years. He helps athletes with nutrition timing—when to eat what for maximum impact on performance—in addition to eating for recovery, reducing inflammation and utilizing antioxidants to assuage the damage caused by intense training. “Our efforts focus on high-octane fuel for performance at just the right time,” says Seebohar. “It’s part art, part science.”

An art it may be, but it’s the science of sports nutrition that has garnered recent recognition. And while historically the nutrition needs of athletes often were assigned to athletic trainers and strength coaches, today sports dietitians are growing in number and expanding in influence. There are several paths into sports dietetics. Private practice has always been a prime route of entry, especially for entrepreneurial RDs. Additionally, RDs employed by a medical school or local medical practice might assist athletes on professional or collegiate teams or clubs. Other institutions incorporate sports dietetics into the job descriptions of RDs who work in student health, wellness departments or foodservice. And increasingly, full-time staff positions are being developed for sports dietitians within collegiate athletic departments.

Coinciding with this increase in awareness of the connection between athletic performance and nutrition services was the development of the Board Certified Specialist in Sports Dietetics credential by the Commission on Dietetic Registration. Since the CSSD launch in 2006, nearly 200 RDs have earned the designation. “The CSSD credential has upped the ante, increasing our credibility and status by carving out a niche and adding greater significance to the field,” says Seebohar.

Karen Daigle, MS, RD, CSSD, agrees. After all, it was just recently that the U.S. Olympic Committee began to truly understand and value the impact of nutrition on athletic performance. In 2005, the training centers operated with one nutrition coordinator who was not a sports dietitian. Daigle was a recently credentialed RD and had just completed a physiology internship at the USOC training center in Colorado Springs. Although she was employed as a sport physiologist, she found herself fielding nutrition questions from staff and athletes simply because they knew she was a registered dietitian.

When the nutrition coordinator announced her retirement, Daigle saw an opportunity for RDs to shine. She wrote proposals to create amore robust nutrition presence within the organization. The first submittals didn’t get much traction, but within a year her message struck a chord. “I kept tweaking the proposals until the USOC accepted one,” says Daigle. “Once they recognized the importance of nutrition counseling, in particular from a CSSD, everything started falling into place.”

Today Daigle, who works at the USOC center in Chula Vista, Calif., is responsible for athletes in team and technical sports, working with water polo, volleyball, field hockey and other team games, in addition to finesse events such as archery, shooting and equestrian competitions. Her nutrition focus is onmental acuity, attention span and keeping athletes quick on their feet.

Daigle, who was once an electronic warfare operator on a reconnaissance aircraft for the U.S. Navy, is keenly aware of the important role of nutrition in mental sports. “Though you may not see much in the regular literature, there is a fair amount of research from the military on the impact of nutrition on mental sharpness,” saysDaigle. “My job is to help athletes learn how to maintain stable insulin and glucose levels in order to optimize target acquisition, reaction time and decision making under pressure.”

But not all sports and disciplines have the same nutritional requirements. Susie Parker-Simmons, MS, MEd, RD, oversees U.S. Olympic strength and power sports (such as sprinting, shot put and weightlifting) in Colorado Springs. Parker- Simmons also works with weight class athletes, who face a different set of challenges. “Because of the demands of meeting requirements on the scale, an athlete’s nutritional status may not be optimal because above all else, he or she is trying to stay within a certain weight category,” explains Parker- Simmons. “We use laboratory testing—such as blood work, metabolic testing, anthropometry testing, lactates and heart rate—to determine athletes’ calorie requirements, work with them on boosting their immune systems and guide them towards utilizing dietary antioxidants for recovery and healing,” she says.

Prior to her work at USOC, Parker-Simmons lived in Australia where nutrition was very much a part of an athlete’s training. “In Australia, you wouldn’t have a sports team without a nutritionist,” says Parker-Simmons, who was a sports dietitian at the Olympic Village during the 2000Games in Sydney. When she relocated to the United States, Parker-Simmons became a consultant to the American ski and snowboard teams for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah. That turned into a full-time position and took her through the 2006winter games in Torino, Italy, as a member of the U.S. Nordic training team.

While Daigle, Parker-Simmons and Seebohar are USOC employees, other RDs work with Olympic athletes as contracted consultants.

Lisa Dorfman, MS, RD, CSSD, came on board in 2006 when the U.S. Sailing Team hired her to evaluate its current diet regime as it related to their performance goals of increasing energy and muscle mass. “It’s a huge responsibility to help someone earn a gold medal,” says Dorfman, a former professional triathlete and marathon runner. “The stakes are high when you work with athletes at this level. The gold can be a life-changing moment athletically, professionally, financially and emotionally.”

Dorfman adds: “It feels too simplistic to have it come down to the ounces of fluid one drinks or the pre-competition meal a person eats. However, the reality is that the right foods and fluids can separate medalists from hopefuls— racing your personal best or dropping out due to dehydration and cramping.” If minute nutritional elements can factor into the performance of an athlete, imagine managing those elements thousands of miles from home. “It is the antithesis of what you want to train and compete in,” says Dorfman, citing the stress of long-distance travel and acclimating to a different culture.

Because weight loss is a concern for the sailing team, Dorfman has armed her athletes with information on what to eat, what not to eat and how to maintain optimal nutrition status for performance. To do this, Dorfman traveled to China last year to inventory foods in the local stores and at the hotel where the sailing team will be staying. “The more you can manage dietary variables, the better it will be for the athletes,” says Dorfman. This may be especially important for the sailing team; they will be competing in Qingdao, an hour and a half outside of Beijing, and will not have as much hands-on nutrition help during the Games as athletes staying in the main Olympic Village.

The fact that the 2008 Summer Games are being hosted by China—whose food and drug safety standards face intense international criticism—has led to rumors including fish snacks containing formaldehyde, soft drinks with a high bacteria content and meats with enough growth hormone levels to potentially cause false positive drug-testing results. But those stories can be chalked up to media hype. “Every Games produces environmental uncertainty and concern,” notes Parker- Simmons. “Beijing will be no different, but we don’t anticipate it will be any worse than past Games.” She ought to know; Parker-Simmons was front and center at the 2006 Winter Olympic Games when dozens of U.S. athletes, coaches and trainers became sick from food poisoning. “The food was horrendous. It broke all food safety laws,” she says. “Many items were left out all day, cheeses were moldy and breads were as hard as rock.”

Part of the problem was the Torino Games opted to not use an international food company to feed the athletes and instead relied on local vendors. This year, ARAMARK, which has 13 Olympic Games under its belt, will feed the Olympic Village. However, the USOC is leaving nothing to chance, leasing a restaurant in Beijing and setting up a supplemental venue for American athletes and staff to eat. “We learned from Torino that a Plan B and even a Plan C can help support our athletes’ peak performance goals,” says Parker-Simmons.

But overall, the USOC dietitians are not worried about the athletes eating well in China. They’ve spent two years planning and preparing individuals for competition and anticipating potential pitfalls. “We never let up in our education with them. We’ve taught them what to bring in terms of food and even cooking utensils for the hotel. We’ve scouted out Beijing numerous times and have a good handle on what to expect,” says Seebohar. “Our job is to help our athletes stay focused, feel comfortable and make sure they have foods available that are familiar to them.”

In addition to familiar foods in Beijing will be a familiar face: Adam Korzun, MS, RD. Korzun, manager of quality assurance, serves as a liaison between USOC’s food service department and the performance service division. “I’m the follow-through guy,” says Korzun. “I take the nutrition lessons that the athletes learn and make them materialize on their plates.” At the Colorado Springs training center, Korzun–a chef whose background includes working in hospital, corporate and restaurant settings–assists in menu planning and development, product integration (incorporating sponsors’ products into the performance-based menu), customer service and quality management.

In Beijing, Korzun will ensure favorite performance foods are on hand and stock what he calls “the recovery bar” for athletes post training and competition. “For months we have been learning what our athletes would like to have at the games, monitoring what they use during their training camps and having dialogs with trainers, coaches and the Performance Services Division,” says Korzun. “We are ready to deliver in Beijing,” he says.