Ever since the beginning of the ancient Olympic Games, Man has tried to describe the positive effects of physical activity and movement. These empirical descriptions can be regarded as the basic beginning of “sport science”. Throughout the ages we can record enormous changes in “sport science”, beginning with the foundation, tradition and achievements of more than a thousand years of athletic competition that existed until 393 A.D., when the Olympic Games were banned by Theodosius I because of their pagan nature (Finley and Pleket 1976). The development of sport science was a process of differentiation into subdisciplines. It received a more professional impulse through the rebirth of the modern Olympic Games in Athens, Greece in 1896. On 25 November 1892 at a congress in Paris, Baron Pierre de Coubertin made a suggestion regarding the inauguration of Modern Olympic Games, but it took two more years before he could introduce his concept again. So it was at a congress held at the University of the Sorbonne in Paris from 16 to 23 June, 1894 by the Union of French Athletic Sports Societies, that Pierre de Coubertin officially proclaimed the creation of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the restoration of the Olympic Games.

Prerequisites for Olympic competition meant the best possible athletic performance and advances in sports training required advances in medical care of world-class athletes. This relationship underlines the necessity that sports medicine has become an integral component of the Olympic movement. Taking sports medicine as an example, Lavoisier & Seguin were the first to examine gas metabolism by means of spiroergometry in 1789. While treadmills were initially used as punishment in prisons during the 19th century, particularly in England, it was Zuntz in 1889 who applied the treadmill in scientific research. The bicycle ergometre followed in 1896. The first sport medical dissertation was written by Mallwitz in 1908 and a forum for exchange (called the Hygiene Congress) took place in Dresden, Germany in 1911. The first sport medical organisation was then founded in 1912 in Oberhof, Germany.

The 20th century was characterised by the definitions of the maximal oxygene uptake (A.V. Hill 1922), anaerobic threshold (Hollmann 1959), muscle biopsy (Bergström 1962), and similar. Throughout this time, sport science became a supplement to the Olympic Games, including a sport medical symposium at the 1900 Games in St. Louis. Where sport science was included in the Games at the beginning, it has now become customary to stage the symposia within the framework of a Congress at a different time and place. Nevertheless, sport science has proved to be beneficial to the Olympic idea and provided information on the development of sport and performance in the course of the Olympic Games. For example, investigations of the Olympic performance records during this period have confirmed that selected results of male and female competitors have changed significantly. Reasons for these changes could be found in an increased number of participants on one hand, but also in improvements in coaching, better knowledge of the effects of nutrition, perfection of athletic facilities, refinement of athletic equipment and contributions from sports medicine, along with treatment and prevention of athletic injuries, supervision of medical examinations and diagnostic services including testing for drug use, evaluation of athletic performance, nutritional advise, and the prescription of training programs can lead to enhancement of athletic performance.