Animal athletes: a performance review

Major sporting events such as the Olympic Games highlight extraordinary human athletic achievements, performed by the extreme physical outliers of our species. However, there is a range of animal performance that goes far beyond these, both in the wild and in selectively bred ‘sports animals’ such as the racehorse, racing camel, greyhound, sled-dog and racing pigeon. In this selective review, Craig Sharp assesses how human beings measure up in the animal athletic stakes.