Swimmers, of course, also have rapid reaction times, but entering the pool adds another wrinkle to the process. The start of a swimming race is slightly different.
That difference, of one one-hundredth of a second, is something the naked human eye would struggle to even catch. In the men’s 100-meter dash in the 2012 London Olympics, bronze medal winner, American Justin Gatlin, ran a 9.79, while the fourth-place finisher, American Tyson Gay, ran a 9.80. In sprinting, a sport reliant on solely speed, even the shortest of pauses could be the difference between winning and losing. They have trained their entire lives for the moment, and their reaction times, after thousands of repetitions, are swift. When the gun goes off to start an Olympic race in Rio, you won't see any hesitation on the part of the athletes-even for a fraction of a second.
