Great athletes, like Duplantis, don’t fear limits. They just soar over them.  

The first line of Neal Bascomb’s masterpiece, The Perfect Mile, tells us about limits. How most of us fear them, but how some folk can’t see them. “‘How did he know he would not die?’ a Frenchman asked of the first runner to break the four-minute mile.”

Pursuing this feat was considered reckless and dangerous and yet the four-minute mark was broken. In time, Everest was climbed without oxygen. A gymnast hit a perfect 10. And the 100m freestyle at the 2020 Olympics was 35 seconds faster than in 1896.