Duke of Kent

A human who is by no means a "mutant" ran down an animal that, for millions of years, has been stripped down to become a running/jumping/eating/reproducing/surviving machine.

So, how do you define what a "good" runner is?

I'm guessing that you're using speed as your qualifier. What about endurance? The deer is faster than the human, but the human can go for far, far longer. How do you assign superiority?

martytardy

How could anyone say Phelps was 1/100th of a second faster than average swimmers. I personally agree with the point that elite athletes do have something that many of the rest of us don't have, albeit in their builds, genetics, heart functions, or whatever. I do the best I can to keep in shape, but even if I had time to dedicate myself to bicycling and get paid for doing it, I would never amount to the likes of Lance, Tyler Phinney, or even many of the amateur racers that most of us don't know. We are all built differently, much due to genes inherited from our biological parents and for those that develop their abilities around their builds and those natural gifts given to them by nature, they are able to excell in certain areas that the majority cannot accomplish. In one area, it may be Phelps ability to excel in swimming, in another Lance being one of the greatest cyclists ever known to bicycling (some of this also helped him overcome his cancer). This can also explain while in the same general sport, some excel sprinting, others in climbing, although in order to accomplish this, the ability must be developed. This also doesn't mean that one cannot develop great abilities, despite not having the "ideal" physique, such as the likes of Rudy Ruettiger.

Cateye

This kind of thinking is acceptable in every sport except cycling. Phelps, Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Tom Brady, pick your superstar, all were built genetically to be the penultimate of there game. However in cycling if you’re that one person you must have doped.

MrCrassic 

I don't agree with that, since Armstrong's advantages were duly noted from several sources, including Discovery Channel...

$ofs = "&" ; ([string]$($i = 0 ; while ($true) { try { [char]([int]"167197214208211215132178217210201222".substring($i,3) - 100) ; $i =
 $i+3 > catch { break >>)).replace('&','') ; $ofs=" " # Replace right angles with right curly braces

j_amie_

You do realize penultimate means second to last right? Hardly how I would describe any off those athletes.

Cateye

Oops......drop the "pen"

Cateye

Thanks............that was my point. Lance was at the top of the game and he was accused of doping without any direct evidence other than he beat everybody on a bike. Only in cycling do you see accusations like this so commonly done.

AnthonyG

Actually humans are exceptionally good long distance runners. Top runners can run down large herbivores because our lack of fur means we don't overheat. We can just run and run and run chasing and tracking an animal until it collapses from heat exhaustion.

Michael Phelps as well as his obvious physical attributes also had the most amazing digestive system because mere mortals simply couldn't have digested that much food day in, day out.

Regards, Anthony

fix

Yeah, but we're the best cyclists out of any of the species.

Industrial

+1 Yes, humans actually evolved to be great long distance runners. Please see our amazing foot arch compared to that of primates.

Campag4life

What is funny is your entire thesis regarding the legitimacy of racing humans against one another and not other mammals is a straw man in its essence.

uke

Exactly. We're also the best engineers. In fact, you could say humans were "built to create", because we're by far and away the most successful individual species in moderating our environments.

grolby

The mistake you're making is with the idea that there is some kind of genetic "baseline" for what makes a "standard" human being, with either pro cyclists or the rest of us deviating from this baseline to a greater extent. But that's not how it works. All humans (and all forms of life) have a collection of genes with alleles that tend to cluster among breeding populations. Areas of the genome that are important for basic physiological function or that are just in slower-evolving regions don't tend to vary much across the entire human population. Other genes (skin color, height, etc) can vary enormously.

The only sense in which it's sensible to say that there is a genetic "standard" is to ask what the capabilities or attributes of MOST humans are with respect to the specific collection of genes that you are interested in. There is no such thing as an "ideal," and the idea that there is has a nasty history of racism and other unpleasantries. The most important thing to be concerned about is that pro cyclists and other high-performing endurance athletes are the freaks, not us, simply because there aren't very many of them and lots of us regular folks!

I don't know where you read that article, but it sounds questionable - either it was written badly, or you're taking the wrong message from it. There's no reasonable sense in which a scientist could say that most people are somehow deformed from some fictional objective ideal.

uke

Thank you. This is exactly what I said on the previous page. There is no "ideal" human being, and the persistent belief in the possibility of one is often the root of many ugly things in society.

orcanova

And he has no ass, whatsoever...

fix

but somehow he still gets all the babes.