Kovacevic: Nothing on our planet compares to mankind's greatest race

Aug 11, 2016 • 11:28 pm

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RIO DE JANEIRO -- It's not track and field. It's athletics.

That's the formal title used by the Olympics, and it's as accurate as it is unapologetic. It's the world's fastest men and women. The ones capable of running, jumping, leaping, throwing and enduring at a level no one anywhere can match at that point in time.

It's the essence of sport.

It's the root, the very foundation of sport.

And I'm not just going back to Athens' ancient Games but, in all likelihood, to Cro-Magnon Man. It almost has to trace back that far, if you think about it. Man needed to eat, and man needed to avoid being eaten. No trait would have served him better than being fleet of foot. Heck, it might have been the most vital element of our evolution, if one weighs that the original way to avoid relegation was to avoid becoming the lion's brunch.

So while it's fair to debate whether Antonio Brown, Sidney Crosby or Starling Marte might be a better athlete than anyone here at Rio, depending on the criteria created for that debate, what's beyond dispute is that, as a sporting society, we agreed long ago on the ground rules for who's the fastest and how that's determined.

That would be this, courtesy of London 2012:

You heard the British bloke right: 9.64 seconds in the 100-meter sprint for Usain Bolt, already the greatest sprinter in history, arguably the greatest Olympian in history.

That's the standard. Quite literally, the gold standard.

And again, I'm talking about the event rather than the winner for the moment.

AB can blow through the Bengals' secondary, Sid can split the Sharks' defense, and Starling can steal a base standing up, but the globally accepted standard for straightforward speed is set by the 100 meters. Not on grass. Not on ice. Not in water. Just running shoes on a running track.

Devon Allen offered a powerful perspective on that Thursday at the Main Press Centre. He's 21, he's currently a wide receiver at the University of Oregon, yet he's also here competing in the 110-meter hurdles. Asked to compare football to track, he replied: "With track and field, what you put in is what you get out. It's more individual. The football team environment is fun, but you can't control it."

Exactly. There's obviously an added degree of difficulty for Allen or AB or anyone in team sports, but that only distracts from who's the fastest. The controlled aspect of track is everything in that regard.

In all candor, I can't wait.

The athletics competition, the pinnacle of sport, opens on this very Friday morning with an array of disciplines. By Saturday night, at 9:37 p.m. and approximately 11 seconds, we'll be able to pinpoint the world's fastest woman. By Sunday night, at 9:25 p.m. and approximately 10 seconds, we'll have the world's fastest man.

Maybe, the world's fastest man ever.