FUTURE HUMAN

We Will Not Get Bigger, We Will Not Get Faster

Or will we? A dispatch from the outer limits of human athletic performance

Wayde van Niekerk. Photo: Andy Lyons/Getty

Two years ago, at the Summer Olympics in Rio, Wayde van Niekerk ran the 400 meters in 43.03 seconds. Before the South African sprinter could catch his breath, the announcers had already cast his record-setting run…