Sports Pictures Sports Pictures  A 1953 ad for Lucozade when it
was originally sold as a health drink, rather than a sports
drink. See some sports pictures.  Picture Post/Hulton
Archive/Getty Images  A glance at the beverage aisle in any
supermarket makes it pretty clear that sports drinks are growing
in popularity. You can find a myriad of brands and flavors, and
they all promise to improve performance, but who invented these
brightly colored beverages? Were they always neon-colored with
names like Arctic Blast? And does your average exerciser need
sports drinks to replenish during or after a workout?  Gatorade
generally gets credit as the first sports drink, but there was
actually a sports drink on the market in the U.K. decades before
this iconic brand: Lucozade.  A chemist named William Owen
developed Lucozade in 1927, and the initial purpose of the
glucose-and-water mixture was to provide an easy source of
calories and energy for people who were ill. In fact, because of
the glucose, the drink was origina