Animal Olympians

I happened by the TV the other morning while awaiting the weather news, and caught the performance of Celine Dion at the opening ceremony for the 2024 Olympics in Paris. I was stopped in my tracks. Overcoming adversity of the worst kind, a crippling neurological disease, she sang with power, glory and stunning success that many thought they would never hear again from her. I give her the first gold medal of the games. I am pretty sure there wasn’t a dry eye watching…well I can only speak for myself…but WOW!

I applaud the accomplishments of each-and-every one of these stellar athletes. But, of course, I am compelled to compare everything to the gold medal accomplishments of our fellow athletes of the animal world.

Let’s start with Track and Field competitions. The gold medal goes to the froghopper, an insect who can jump 28 inches which equates to a human athlete who could jump over a skyscraper. The froghopper does this impressive leap through the power of its hind leg muscles that flex like an archery bow with a force that exceeds 400 times greater than gravity. Human competitors jump with a force 2 to 3 times that of gravity and pass out at 5 g…imagine an astronaut launch and re-entry of 6g. Silver goes to the annoying flea which is capable of jumping 7 inches equating to 100 times its little body length. A flea can be clocked in at jumping 100 times its own height….silver, but still impressive.

Another track and field entry is in the area of speed, i.e. the sprinter. The sleek cheetah has been clocked at 0 to 60 in less than 3 seconds….GOLD! The lion can speed in at 50 miles an hour in chase of its favorite prey item, the springbok going 55 miles an hour or the blue wildebeest going 50 miles an hour. I guess the fastest ends up with silver here…predator and/or prey. Long distance running/speed goes to the pronghorn antelope who can maintain a speed of 35 miles per hour for several miles because of special pads in its hooves and its ability to suck in large quantities of oxygen! Another gold…

Competition in the water is sometime harder to document, but studies indicate that the fastest fish in the water is the black marlin whose top speed has been logged in at 80 miles per hour. Silver would have to go to the sailfish slicing through the water at 67 miles per hour.

If you are an insect competitor searching for gold, look no farther than the horsefly, that is if you can follow it at 67 miles per hour.

Or, the award for carrying weights for a long distance might go to the tiny ant that can translocate an item of desire long distances with as much as 50 times its weight. That is about the same as a human competitor carrying 154+ pounds for miles…I guess a body made mostly of muscle has some advantage.

Then there are the aerial competitors. Granted mere humans haven’t figured out how to really compete unassisted in this category, but credit must be given to the fastest bird in the air. The peregrine falcon dives between 185 to 240 miles per hour…depending on who’s clocking. That sure sound like gold. However, here comes the golden eagle with all of its splendor diving for prey at 150-200 miles per hour. Vying for bronze in the air zips in the white throated swift at 105 miles an hour or maybe the Eurasian hobby at 100 miles per hour.

The animals competing deserve gold, silver, or bronze, but they really succeed in the contest to win the prey item they are competing for…keep your medals…and thank you very much.

Who knows how much better we would be at these games, if our lives depended on it. I for one am grateful not to have to find out.

As for the human competitors, Go USA!