12/11/2025
As promised, here is one about another common myth...
Mirror, mirror on the wall... Whoโs the fastest of them all?
I am, again, happy to email the full one, with photos, to whomever would like to have it. Just send me your email address, to 082 926 7830 .
You have all heard it... Possibly from a guide on a game drive, a hunter friend, a game farmer, a bush fundi: โThe tsessebe is the fastest of all antelopesโ. And, obviously, you just believed it without question. Far be it from me to blame you! It has become such an entrenched assumption that it is widely accepted as truth.
But where did this story originate from? In fact, many a guide will even go as far as also listing โsecond, third, fourth, fifth fastest...โ
Let us look at the different types of โfastestโ, the evidence, and then, of course, the origin of the story.
After the 2016 Olympic Games, Usain Bolt was the fastest person on the planet.
Note how far Bolt was ahead of the bunch โ all of them, essentially, the cream of sprinters. Note the large muscle mass associated with fast twitch 2b muscles in sprinters
In this race, Usain Bolt's average ground speed was 37.58 km/, with his peak 60-80m speed hitting 44.72 km/h. There is no doubt that, at that time, Bolt was the fastest person on the planet.
Another running world champion is the British long distance runner, Sir Mo Farah. Few in the history of long distance runners can compete with the light-weight Mo. Usain Bolt, should he decide to run the 5000m with Farah, will probably be โlappedโ more than once. Despite his superior speed, he would simply lack the endurance. But, likewise, if Sir Mo lined up with Bolt for the 100m dash, he would, probably, not be too far past the 85m mark when Bolt eases over the line. The point, here, is that the fastest man on Earth is, clearly, the one who reaches the highest top speed: Bolt. But sheer sprinting capability comes at a price: Endurance. Mammals, for example humans, have both โfast twitchโ and โslow twitchโ muscle. Fast twitch muscle can be further divided into types 2a, which is somewhat intermediate between slow-twitch muscle and fast-twitch 2b, as in the table below.
Characteristic Slow-twitch Fast-twitch 2a Fast-twitch 2b
Force production Low Intermediate High
Contraction speed Slow Fast Fast
Fatigue resistance High Moderate Low
Glycolytic capacity Low High High
Oxidative capacity High Medium Low
Capillary density High Intermediate Low
Mitochondrial density High Intermediate Low
Endurance capacity High Moderate Low
From the table, one can easily glean that runners of very long distances (marathons and ultra-marathons) would need mostly slow-twitch muscle fibres. Medium long distance runners, like Sir Mo, would need a good mix of slow-twitch and fast-twitch 2a, with not a huge need for fast-twitch 2b. Athletes of middle distances, like the 800m and 1500m, would need mostly fast-twitch 2a and 2b. Outright sprinters go all on 2b.
Tsessebe territorial bull, Mokala National Park. Note the relatively weak sprinting muscles of the hind legs, indicating mostly slow twitch and fast twitch 2a muscles, and deep chest for aerobic middle to long distance running
Sir Mo Farah winning another world title in the 10 000m. Note the much thinner legs of long distance runners, with mostly slow twitch and fast twitch 2a muscles โ Comparable to those of Alcelaphini, like tsessebe, hartebeest, wildebeest and blesbok/bontebok
In athletics, this means that a great sprinter, like Bolt, would fare rather poorly in everything further than 400m; and even in that, heโd not be world class. Nevertheless โ He IS the fastest man in the world!
Eliud Kipchoge, dubbed the โGreatest Marathoner, Everโ, being the first person to have run the 42,2km distance in under two hours, is a fine example of a near perfect long distance athlete, with the perfect slow twitch to fast twitch 2a ratio for that distance. And yet... Neither Mo Farah, nor Eliud Kipchoge, is the โFastest Man on The Planetโ. For the time being, that title belongs to Usain Bolt.
This now brings us to the โfastest antelopeโ story. Firstly, how did the tsessebe get the โtitleโ of being the fastest? The answer can be found in a book written by the famous 19th and early 20th century hunter/naturalist Frederick Courtney Selous:
โMy own experience is not sufficient to justify me in dogmatising on this subject, but all those (he refers to gemsbok - BdK) I have shot I have galloped after, and I have also had a considerable experience in riding after most other South African antelopes; and my verdict is, that although gemsbuck run with great speed and endurance, they are inferior in these respects to the tsessebe, Cape hartebeest, Lichtenstein's hartebeest, blue and black wildebeest, and to the blesbok.โ (FREDERICK COURTENEY SELOUS, 1908, African Nature Notes and Reminiscences)
Read that again. And note the facts:
1. Selous did not necessarily list those antelopes in order of decreasing difficulty to chase down on horseback; he just lists them as all being more difficult to run down in that manner than is gemsbok
2. The words โspeed and enduranceโ, physiologically, conjures up the image of Mo Farah โ NOT Ussain Bolt.
3. The antelopes on the list all belong to the sub-family Alcelaphinae. Most of those were, before fences, either migratory or would move over long distances to areas where the rain had fallen
4. With the exception, possibly, of the blesbok, none of those would be commonly targeted by the worldโs fastest land mammal, the cheetah. All of them would be fair game for persistence hunters, such as wild dog and spotted hyena, and would therefore need persistence more that out-right speed.
5. Alcelaphinae have higher forequarters than hindquarters, with the muscles of the hind legs (the โsprintingโ muscles) being relatively small. The high forequarters are indicative of a large lung capacity, for persistence running.
At this point, allow me to tell you about my late grandfather, Hendrik Roets, and his younger brother, Christiaan Roets.
Oupa Hendrik sadly died while I was still in primary school, and I do not recall many of his stories. Oom Christie, however, lived to the ripe old age of 94, and delighted much in sharing his memories with us.
During the depression years of the 1930โs, money was a very limited commodity for farmers of the Molopo region, on the western part of the South Africa/Botswana border. That area would have been, in many ways, the โWild Westโ of South Africa, at the time. Ammunition was very expensive and difficult to get, so they would try to save on bullets where possible. Apart from getting some game meat โfor the potโ, they also had to protect their livestock. One of the major problems for their goats and sheep was the cheetah, still numerous in that area at the time.
Oom Christie recounted how they would get rid of cheetahs without wasting precious ammunition. The cheetah, said Oom Christie, was the easiest of any animal to chase down on horseback. You would have to chase it for only about a mile (1,6 km), before it would be so exhausted that it would simply lie down, panting, incapable of moving any more. At that point, they would despatch the hapless cheetah with a single, well aimed blow with a โknopkierieโ (a wooden club with a large k**b at the tip).
Among the antelopes, Oom Christie explained, you would not even attempt to chase down hartebeest, nor wildebeest; the horse would tire long before them. Gemsbok was difficult, but, with a good horse, possible, after a fairly long chase. Springbok, however, was almost as easy as cheetah; after a chase of one to two miles, the springbok would collapse, similarly to the cheetah, and you could easily slit the throat.
Using the experiences of FC Selous and The Brothers Roets, regarding the chasing down of wildlife on horseback, the picture is clear: The fastest ones โ the sprinters โwould have mostly fast twitch 2b muscles, and therefore, run out of steam fairly soon, despite being faster than the middle distance and marathon runners.
It turns out that the โtsessebe is the fastest antelopeโ narrative is a result, simply, of a misunderstanding about the quote from Selous.
I hereby want to honour him by putting it into context!
Springbok rams taking off, Grensplaas Private Game Reserve, Northern Cape. Note how the bulk of mass is in their hindquarters, where the sprinting power comes from. They are superb sprinters, and may well be the fastest in Southern Africa. In nature, cheetahs would fall among their main predators. Like cheetah, they soon run out of steam after such a sprint, indicating a predominance of fast twitch 2b muscles
From the above, it is clear that, whilst being a pretty fast endurance runner, the tsessebe is certainly not the fastest antelope - but, quite possibly, could be the โMo Farahโ of antelopes, together with other Alcelapini. Game capture operators also often comment on the difficulty of capturing tsessebe; again, their great โspeed-enduranceโ (think Mo Farah) at play! Contenders like springbok and other gazelles appear to be closer to Usain Bolt โ after all, their Public Enemy Nr 1 is the cheetah!
Are there, in fact, reliable statistics that could put a โnumberโ on animal speeds? My friend and part time colleaugue, Dr Jeff Williams, took the question to Professor John R. Hutchinson, considered to be one of the worldโs top experts on animal speeds. As it turns out, statistically meaningful data sets for โtop speedsโ actually exists for five species only: Humans, greyhounds, (Asian) elephants, camels and horses... The animals regularly raced over known distances and timed accurately! All other โtop speedsโ, Prof Hutchinson says, are merely educated guesses. Whilst fairly good data sets exist for cheetah, the measurement methodology is difficult to standardise in field tests. Prof Hutchinson also have fairly good statistics for African elephants (turns out, they are slower than books suggest), but he admits that is also data deficient (Hutchinson et al, 2006).
