It takes between 0.1 to 0.4 seconds for a human eye to blink.
The time taken for a human heart to complete a beat is 0.8 seconds. Formula One drivers are known to have a reaction time of 0.
2-0.3 seconds. On a dramatic Sunday night at Stade de France in Paris, Noah Lyles won the Olympic men’s 100m by 5000ths of a second.
That is (0.005 secs) faster than the time your brain takes to process this sentence – which is 13 milliseconds, or 0.013 seconds.
Shooting and archery results are routinely determined by decimal points where a bullseye may not be enough to win you the day. Wrestlers fret over every milligram gained, footballers perfect the art of firing in perfect long balls. But there’s something about the 100m – bare, brutal, beautiful.
There’s a reason the men’s 100m final at the Olympics is revered as the creme de la creme of track and field events. It’s the ultimate expression of human athleticism, one that pits the finest fast-twitch fibres and self-belief in eight adjoining lanes, pushing their speed limits in front of an expectant, hollering world. It’s an enchanting form of sporting endeavour where legends are crafted and destinies shaped.
Noah Lyles ran the fastest he had ever run the 100m. Both the American showman and Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson were credited with 9.79 seconds, Lyles edging the race 9.
784secs to Thompson’s 9.789secs after the world had watched the consistently fastest 100m ever -- all eight finalists clocked sub-10secs, a first i.