Animalia had had various elements that had made it seem attractive to many people for various reasons. Horizon had found ways to provide for the advertising to allow for tourist sites like Mieni to be economically viable. Project Phoenix had offered a new lease on life for those suffering from terminal diseases or major injuries and the peculiar age regression and progression effects that came from double dosing, depending on the age of the person converted and the Animalian providing the Animalia Virus sample, gave the elderly a new shot at life and success if they wanted it. Not to mention that there were those who often came to Lyre/Animalia to see statuesque Animalian females and males with a slightly more "relaxed" definition on what was "proper" as seen with the Meat Market's profit margin. Even with Andrew, Jen, and Tyra no longer there, the club STILL made money.
The thing, however, that had often created concerns and issues regarding Animalia's integration with all of American society came in relation to the various concepts on athletics. Many Animalians liked that idea and there were plenty that had interest in wanting to compete in various sports that won attention, like Princess having an interest in volleyball. But because so many Animalians were either bigger than Humans or at the very least stronger than Humans, many organized sports leagues, including the NCAA put a sort of restriction on Animalian athletes that until the number interested large enough to allow every team to pick one so that there could be no claim that the first college or team to draft/recruit an Animalian was unfairly dominating the sport. Generally this was accepted and allowed the IAC to function as an outlet for Animalian Athletes.
However, Animalia's quest for inclusion had also served to create potential areas of conflict when it came to things like IAC. Particularly because it was an Animalians only contest, and ih8ulibs had effectively trolled Animalia Ambassadoria's videos during the previous IAC on that issue and even into the build up to the present IAC. The charges were often to try and point to the hypocrisy in wanting to be included in society while blocking others from participating. One even included the taunt of "what are you high and mighty Animalians afraid of losing to a lowly Human?" Because of this, the Second IAC included a series of events that were designed to serve as a proof of reasoning for why organized sports leagues like the NCAA for collegiate sports and professional leagues had put in place their regulations regarding Animalian involvement and why the IAC was for Animalians only. They would be limited to track and field with a few races that would pit an average Human athlete and an Olympic level athlete against a pair of Animalians.
The regular Human athlete was Martin Moses, wo had volunteered for the event after learning about the test. It was his shot at real competition that he'd dreamed of but never really got because of Animalia's birth going into his freshman year. He'd boiled with some resentment over that and had voiced that with some frustration to Sophie Albers during his Sophomore Year at Lyre High, but some of that actually relaxed over the course of his Junior Year at WSA where he spent his free hour talking with Malice in the school's library. Now he'd have his shot to compete. He didn't see himself winning, but he'd actually found that his older brother had come back for the race and congratulated him on taking part. The Olympic level athlete was a track and field runner from the University of Colorado by the name Ulysses Lee. He'd trained through his life at track and field and felt that some of his high altitude training actually helped out quite well in endurance races, and he'd accepted Animalia's offer as a test with the promises that he could use some of the footage and times as part of a means to try out for the US Olympic Team in the future.
The two Animalian runners were Anne Cumbertin and Abby Brown. They would provide for the base builds for Animalians that were generally built for running, like Abby, a Quarter Horse Animalian, and Animalians not built for a lot of running, with Anne being a Striped Skunk Animalian. Overseeing and covering the specialized event were Roger and Jessica, who stood near the finish line which was marked at where the fifty yard line had been for Lyre High's football field. The sports facilities were still there and part of WSA's management and would thus serve the purpose of IAC track and field events, or at least as the starting point for some of them. Roger and Jessica both noted a fairly decent sized crowd had come to view the tests. While a pair of Animalia's media staff handled the camera work for the event. A Horizon staff member was also present to serve as referee and had a stopwatch ready.
"I think we're ready," Roger said to Jessica as he saw all four runners wave from the starting point that would cover one yards of distance.
Jessica nodded and then nodded to the camera crew for the shot and then turned back to the crowd. The camera crew moved around to be able to get a shot of Roger and Jessica from the front as they lifted up the microphones they were given to allow everyone present to hear them as they spoke.
"Hello and welcome," Jessica began, "I'm glad we've had so many guests for what is essentially a special event for this year's IAC. The Human/Animalian Races."
"As many know, sports is something that everyone has loved, be they Human or Animalian and everyone in Lyre and Animalia will enjoy games on TV and participating in some event when they can," Roger added, "but there have been the questions regarding why no Humans were in the last IAC or why Animalians have not been drafted into the NFL. And on the surface these things wouldn't seem fair."
"But they are not without reason or made in malice," Jessica added, "For in many ways, Animalia and Animalians will bring certain aspects to the theater of competition that may not be easily matched. Which these races are to prove. We have Abby Brown, winner of last IAC's triathlon, Anne Cumbertin, part of the winning team from the relay event in the last IAC, Ulysses Lee, a college athlete from Colorado and looking to ultimately try out for the Olympics, and Martin Moses, who will be a Senior at WSA this coming fall."
There was a brief pause for applause before Roger picked up.
"There will be two sets of races," Roger spoke, "the first will be a one hundred yard dash around the track, which we did measure. After that the Horizon staff present will run health checks to check each runner's pulse and how well energized they feel. If they are at less than one hundred percent, a timer will then be started to measure how long it will take them to recover to be ready for the next race."
"Once that is all documented and everyone is ready, we will move on to the final race," Jessica finished, "a one mile run. Four laps around the field. The fastest time wins. The results will certainly be interesting, and hopefully enlightening. It will hopefully provide some means of demonstrating why certain decisions have been made."
There were a few claps and Jessica and Roger then turned back to look to where the four racers were in position and began the countdown...
"On your mark! Get set! GO!"
And they were off with a start and a couple of things were quickly obvious. While getting up to full speed took a little bit, of the four of them, Abby easily pulled ahead and was going at full speed and her long legs easily carrying her at full stride. Ulysses and Anne were close behind and both of them accelerated at the same pace, though both were still well behind Abby. Martin was the slowest out of the start, but he actually began to catch up with Anne toward the end of the race. He was able to look to his side and could see that he was about even with Anne's tail, but not much closer than that. And the time markers came in quick. Abby won at 7.977 seconds. Ulysses came in second at 10.001 seconds. Anne came in at 11.591 seconds and Martin at 11.592 seconds. There were some gasps of surprise as Jessica red off the numbers.
Roger, meanwhile moved to check with the competitors. He started with Ulysses who was actually standing near where Abby was with his hands resting on his knees. Roger noted that while Abby wasn't bent over, her nostrils were flared as she was recovering from the sprint as well.
"So... Mr. Lee... you finished second in the dash, but did rather well," Roger spoke, "not too terribly far off the world record for a human sprinter... I think."
"A lot of it is training," Ulysses Lee spoke with a slow pant, "there is a lot of training that goes into racing... and that includes some measure of endurance training in order to avoid slowing down at the end of the sprint. And that takes a LOT of work. And training at high altitude and lower oxygen levels helps... but it still takes a lot of work. And I gotta hand it to your mare friend here. She has something I don't."
"I've been dating Jessica," Roger said pointing to his bond mate, "Abby's bond mate is named Samson."
Ulysses managed a small smile, "The heart muscle comes into it... but not in the matters of love. You can see this from her profile. Viewing her from the side... that's not all breast tissue and muscle. Her rib cage is larger than mine is, meaning her heart and lungs are bigger than mine. That then fuels her ability to move her long legs which give her an impressive stride and allows her to cover ground quicker than I can. I can train hard... and I do train hard at these sorts of sprints, but there is only so much that I can do when compared to a race horse bred for running."
"Quarter Horses are used more as ranch horses," Abby answered.
"They were originally bread as race horses and had better stamina than others at race of one quarter of a mile, thus its name," Ulysses Lee spoke, "I gotta friend who's real big on all that horse raising stuff... The American Quarter Horse has had a lot of uses, but much of that comes from natural abilities that were part of the breed's development for racing proved beneficial to their use in other areas as well."
"Interesting," Roger spoke and then moved on. He came on to Anne and Martin, who were both drinking from bottles of water as he arrived. "And how are you doing?"
"Pretty good..." Martin said slowly, "thought I was gaining ground there at the end..."
"You did well," Anne assured him, "and it isn't like we were going to outrun a Horse Animalian in a dead sprint."
Martin conceded that. From there things moved on and the Horizon scientists found that that all of them needed some time to recover from the first race. That gave everyone some time to recover. All of them seemed to recover at the same rate, though both Abby and Ulysses seemed to recover faster. Though this was likely due to the fact that Abby had frequently had a fair amount of work throughout her life to help with the work her parents did and Ulysses had had a lot of intensive training that had essentially conditioned him to that sort of exercise. They then followed into the mile race once everyone had recovered. And again, Roger and Jessica played the role of starter.
The mile race played very different pace than the sprint run earlier. Again Abby took the lead, but this time, particularly in the first three laps, she took a slower pace. It would be more of a trotting pace if she were to go on all fours. And Ulysses, Martin and Anne largely managed the same pace. Ulysses Lee did the best at keeping pace with Abby, but he still fell behind Abby. Martin and Anne remained fairly close together, though as the race went on both of them began to fall a bit behind Abby and Ulysses Lee. As they got even closer to the end of the race, Martin began to actually overtake Anne. The race ended with Abby again coming in first at 3 minutes 29 seconds, again letting her long legs carry her. Ulysses came in second at 4 minutes 59 seconds. Then came Martin at 6 minutes 10.2 seconds and finally Anne at 6 minutes 10.3 seconds. It was something that marked an end point which Roger and Jessica pointed to as the full numbers were presented.
"So... Martin did quite well in the endurance run and even edged out Anne," Jessica commented, "but even that paled in comparison to Abby's time, which might even be faster than the Human record in the same event."
"Which would provide a demonstration on why certain organized sports leagues might hold a team with an Animalian to have an unfair advantage," Roger added, "particularly with regard to certain sports. Track and field teams with Horse, Dog, Wolf, and Cheetah Animalians would all have major advantages in sprints or endurance running over their human competitors. For even Ulysses Lee, who's trained heavily for these sorts of events finished well behind Abby and the Human record for the mile run."
"And thus why in official statements the NCAA and various professional leagues have stated to wait for Animalian interest and population to reach a point where they can not only have a choice but present a case where every team could get at least one Animalian," Jessica spoke, "thus no one would have an unfair advantage... Can Humans compete with Animalians? Depending on the person and the event... sure. But a lot of that could be difficult to determine and all the data numbers aren't completely sure yet. Particularly when things like size could come into play..."
"In time... as Animalia grows and the world of sport grows with it, those things may change," Roger finished, "and when that happens, things like the IAC may merge with the Olympics... or with college athletics. But we aren't there yet. There aren't enough Animalians to allow for a mixed team to be balanced, thus raising the threat of an unfair advantage to the team with an Animalian."
"And until then, Animalia will have the IAC as a means for Animalians to compete to the best of their ability and have an outlet for sport that isn't there at present," Jessica finished, "If this isn't enough proof... please let us know on other events you'd like us to run comparative events like this. That may show up in future IAC events."