I still think this is arguably the most incredible athletic achievement in the history of mankind.
The climber is the first person to reach the top of Yosemite’s 3,000-foot El Capitan wall without ropes.
www.nationalgeographic.com
A 3,000 foot, damn near straight vertical, damn near smooth wall.... with no ropes.
65 years ago, they didn't even think climbing this wall was possible under ANY conditions. The first person to climb it took 47 days of literally bolting holds and ladders into the wall to make it up. It took until 25 years ago for someone to finally free climb it without mechanical assistance, and that's with ropes. So this is a climb that wasn't even possible with ropes 30 years ago, now how you maintain the fukking nerve to climb for 3000 straight feet with zero safety, zero rest, your hands holding on by fukking fingertip holds over and over again....
Most sporting achievements are arbitrary, they're just games people made up or random times over random distances under artificial conditions. This is walking up to a fukking mountain with nothing but your own hands to hold you and saying, "I can reach the top of that bytch."