date:Jul 23, 2012
l. The original diets were mostly vegetarian - vegetable soup, barley and wheat bread, fresh cheese, olives, fruit, plus fresh and dried fish.
But according to the historian Pausanius in 480 BC, Dromeus of Stymphalos won the long-distance race after training on a mostly meat diet, and that may have inspired other athletes to shift to non-veg food. The Games were high prestige by then and Greek city states were willing to splurge on their heroes.
Philostratos, who wrote the earliest athletics