Nearly every sport except long-distance running is fundamentally absurd
slate.com
slate.com
Eg, http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140225-human-vs-animal-who... .
As such, the headline is an incorrect generalization of converting "humans are good at long-distance running" into "long-distance running is the only sport ability that humans are better at than other animals."
No animal can throw a spear, or even a rock, more accurately than a human.
I also object to the hand-waving about dogs. Long distance sled dogs average 8 miles an hour over the 1,100-mile Iditarod race." For shorter distances, sled dogs may average 10 to 14 miles per hour during the course of a day of mushing" says https://animals.mom.me/how-fast-can-dogs-run-in-dog-sled-rac... .
The objection in the article is that they are "forced to by humans."
However, the comparison with wolves and hyenas refer to the typical distance. The relevant comparison should therefore be to typical human travel distances, which is also in the 10-20km range for hunter-gather humans, as I recall.
Humans in a marathon are doing so because they want to. Thus, the third difference is that humans organize sporting events, which is not something that other animals do.
I objected to the handwaving numbers.
Handwaving #1: 42.2 km / (6.5 meters / second) = 1.8 hours for a marathon distance. The 2 hour marathon has not been broken. Hence, the 'sustain' here is for less than 2 hours, and not the day-long sled races that dogs can do
Handwaving #2: The text implies that a dog trotting speed is 'about 3.8 meters per second' then uses 'trot' for Huskies which, according to the link I gave, are able to 'average 10 to 14 miles per hour during the course of a day'. That is 6.25 meters per second, or almost as fast as elite runners, and for a longer time period.
Handwaving #3: Sled dogs can race far longer than 100km. The Iditarod is about 1,000 miles (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iditarod_Trail_Sled_Dog_Race says "the exact measured distance of the race varies from year to year, but officially the northern route is 975 miles (1,569 km) long, and the southern route is 998 miles (1,606 km) long" and that the fastest time is 8 days, 3 hours, 40 minutes, and 13 seconds and 8 or 9 days is not uncommon. That's about 180km/day, not the "up to 100km".
From http://www.iau-ultramarathon.org/images/file/March_2012_Worl... we see that the fastest human times, is over 10 days - truly impressive!, but significantly slower than sled dogs.
I just realized that 'special circumstances' is also human-centered. Humans also require appropriate climate to get those optimal speeds, and the Yiannis Kouros's 10 day record is on a road, not cross-country through snow like what the dogs run in. From the dog's point of view, humans need a special circumstances - climate and well-prepared track in order to reach their long-distance efforts.
Not only accurately, but powerfully. Chimpanzees are much stronger than humans, but we can throw far harder thanks to different shoulder structures and muscle attachments.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jq6dCFCMGq4
Baseball (a sport I love dearly) has "fundamentally absurd" rules. You have to touch the base to be safe? If someone catches the ball in the air I have to go back to the base? but then I can run again? Stealing isn't against the rules? What on earth is a balk? Yet, since the sport revolves around throwing (even batting is throwing without letting go) and we're the best at throwing it's okay to play baseball? This article profoundly misunderstands sport and why competition is fun.
Only the most anti-social people on Earth would recommend we not have Special Olympics for handicapped persons to compete, improve themselves, feel good about the effort they put in and the results, etc. They're obviously not the greatest athletes in the world, but that does not detract from their efforts at all. I admit this is top of mind because of recent federal funding controversies.
Men's divisions generally have better numbers than women's divisions to my limited knowledge (I assume there are exceptions) but that doesn't detract from our enjoyment of women's divisions in the Olympics, nor does it detract from the accomplishments of great female Olympians.
Carried to it's natural conclusion, why does anyone watch lesser league play, like the minor leagues? Maybe because sports is about something more than proving you're the greatest at performing that task among all life forms on Earth.
(I hope my use of these groups of athletes to make the point, isn't interpreted as detracting from any of them in any way.)
Basically, I'm going to assert that the implied claim (that I am reading into the article) that any sort of physical competition is absurd if there are other humans or other forms of life who do things better than you, is ridiculous on it's face. I will continue to watch Olympic swimming, without thinking to myself "ugh, a dolphin would tear these athletes up."
Also, while Jordan was a great athlete, there have been even more freakish ones like Giannis, Spud Webb, Shaq, Wilt and arguably, Lebron.But why should being a freakish athlete be the measuring stick and not shooting like Stephen Curry?
That said, the article itself touches on some vaguely interesting points. I enjoyed the image of early humans taking down antelopes through a combination of persistence and efficient cooling, and doing this often enough to sustain a species until it could develop tools and hand-eye coordination.
As far as I'm aware, Gus is the only animal who's been successful at the professional level.
I've yet to see a cat drop a 3 pointer.