Into the torpor of a muggy Washington summer, where it doesn’t much matter whether you saunter down the street in 20 minutes or 10, comes news from a place where every second counts.

“Americans miss out on a men’s eight medal by 0.3 of a second,” screams one headline, describing the time that separated the U.S. men’s rowing team from a bronze medal.  Or, a more positive example, swimmer Nathan Adrian surprised everyone by pushing past the Australian, French and Brazilian favorites to win gold in the men’s 100-meter freestyle — by .01 second.

We watch sports for the drama and the fun, to marvel at what the human body is capable of. But do we also watch because time is compressed? The slow-moving outcomes of our own sometimes tedious lives are sped up in the pool and on the playing fields. In competition, as in books and movies, we get to see how it all ends.