For two weeks every four years, I am a grouchy mess due to severe lack of sleep from staying up late every night watching the Olympics. This year’s Games has been particularly exciting with the number of world records that are falling, and the track events haven’t even started yet. Most of the records that have been broken have been in swimming. This is due in part to the design of the Water Cube where the events are taking place and the technologically advanced swimsuits that the athletes are wearing, but it’s mostly due to the athletes themselves: the hours upon hours of training they put in, the special diets, the sacrifices they make to become the fastest athletes in history. But when will it end?
I wonder if there will be an Olympics in my lifetime in which no world records are broken because we’ve become as fast as humanly possible (without doping or genetic enhancement, that is). But what is that limit? There was a time when it was believed that no human could ever break the four-minute mile, until Roger Bannister broke that barrier in 1954. The current world record for the mile of 3:43.13, set by Hicham El Guerrouj, has stood for over nine years. Will this record ever be broken, or have we finally reached the cutoff point where man can go no faster?
It’s clear with the events of this past week that we aren’t yet close to that limit, at least in swimming. And until that time comes, I will continue to look forward to the fortnight every four years when I test my personal limit of the minimum amount of sleep on which I can survive while watching athletes pursue their dreams of becoming the fastest humans in history.
