It is crucial to assess an athlete's dietary intake and control the evolution of his/her anthropometric variables throughout the training season. However, there are few modern studies in this area carried out on elite adult track and field athletes. In a project commissioned by the Spanish athletics federation and supported by the Spanish Sports Council, the authors made controlled diet and body composition assessments of members of the Spanish national athletic team training at the national high-performance training centre in Madrid. The sample included 19 female and 19 male elite athletes from the middle- and long-distances, sprints, jumps and combined events. Working closely with the coaches, the authors gathered extensive data, including anthropometric measurements, nutritional intake and energy expenditure. They compared their findings with references and suggested intakes published by a variety of sources. They were able to draw 18 conclusions, including the Identification of a) deficits in the consumption of carbohydrates as well vitamins D and E for the athletes studied, b) a deficit in fluid intake for the middle-and long-distance runners and c) a deficit in folic acid for the female athletes. They end with a recommendation for further research projects in this area, with larger samples and spedific protocols.
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