Hacker News Reader

Setting a new world record is part of making history, and many are not broken at every Olympics. Consider this example - the men's 100m sprint world record was last broken by Usain Bolt 15 years ago! Now if you're not into that particular sport then maybe that doesn't mean much to you, fair enough. But wow, when someone comes along who is able to break that record it will really be something special.

View on HN

Yeah, that's kinda what I was getting at. The way this talks about "impeding world records" makes it sound like they're expected to be broken frequently. If that's the case, to me, it kinda cheapens world records - that's to say, if they're broken so often, it doesn't seem as big of a deal. But when someone like Usain sets a record that lasts for a while, it does make sense to me that the breaking of that record is special.

It ain't special if it happens a lot, I guess is my thinking.

Sure, but I think you're missing the point.

The point is that many athletes are only at their peak for one or two Olympics. How rubbish for them that they're not able to get a fair shot at the record like others have had in the past.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com