[imagesource Reuters / Giampiero Sposito]

As I write this, my cat is curled up in her bed next to me, and she doesn’t look like she could give the world’s fastest humans a run for their money.

Well, if you crunch the numbers, it turns out she could.

On Sunday, Lamont Marcell Jacobs clocked a 9,80 in the men’s 100-metre final, securing Italy’s first-ever gold in the event, much to the delight of high jump buddy, Gianmarco Tamberi.

That time is some way off the world record of 9,58 seconds, set by the one and only Usain Bolt, who maxed out at around 27 miles per hour (43,4 kilometres per hour) in that race.

Unbelievably quick, but as WIRED points out, still under the top speed of the average house (domestic) cat:

In a race against cheetahs and pronghorns, the fastest animals in the world, Bolt wouldn’t stand a chance.

You might think how fast an animal can go depends on the size of its muscles: more strength, more speed. While that’s true to a certain extent, an elephant will never outrun a gazelle. So what really determines maximum speed?

A group of scientists affiliated with the University of Stuttgart, led by biomechanist Michael Günther, recently set out to answer that question.

The results were published last week in the Journal of Theoretical Biology, focusing in part on which body design elements are the most important for optimising speed.

Günther and his team built a biomechanical model consisting of over 40 different parameters relating to body design.

An important factor to consider related to inertia – the resistance of an object to accelerate from a state of rest.

According to the team’s results, the sweet spot for overcoming air drag and inertia lies at around 110 pounds. Not coincidentally, that’s the average weight of both cheetahs and pronghorns.

Günther’s team was also able to predict theoretical speed maximums for different body designs at 100 kilograms, or about 220 pounds.

Image: Frans Lanting / Nat Geo

A house cat this size could run up to 46 miles per hour; a giant spider, if its legs could somehow sustain its weight, would top out at 35 miles per hour.

Unsurprisingly, the average human body design comes in last place here: At 100 kilograms, we can only reach about 24 miles per hour.

Leg length was also critical, as longer-legged animals can push their bodies further forward before lifting a foot from the ground.

Günther says four-legged animals can also run much faster than humans because of the upright positioning of our torsos:

Bipedal creatures have evolved with much more rigid spinal structures to prioritize balance and stability over speed. Animals whose trunks are parallel to the ground, however, evolved with more flexible spines that are optimized for prolonged foot contact with the earth.

Another checkmark for our feline friends.

It may be some time before we see anybody come close to Bolt’s 100-metre time, and even then, it’s unlikely that the record will duck much below where it currently stands:

The biomechanics of sprinting show that we are already approaching the limit of what is possible for human bodies. And when someone new becomes the fastest person on the planet, they’ll have to resign themselves to holding that title only among humans.

In the animal kingdom, we’re nothing special.

Your cat is, and always will be, superior to you.

They know it, too.

[source:wired]