Why humans are optimised for endurance running, not speed

Other animals have us beat over short distances, but in an interspecies Olympic ultramarathon, Homo sapiens would likely take all the medals

Roger Bannister's four-minute mile, while a remarkable human milestone, is noteworthy from a comparative physiology standpoint only for its mediocrity. A seminal paper by AV Hill on biomechanics illustrates the point with a table of maximum speeds across the animal kingdom - humans are outperformed by almost every animal on the list, including the wild donkey, the ostrich and the elephant. We just about beat the black rhinoceros, while the cheetah would complete the mile in about a minute.

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