Impalas and zebras must be more athletic because they have to scape the cheetahs and lions 100% of the time. If you scape only 99% of the time you are dead.

Also, the predator is happy to catch any of the preys, they can pick a tired/old/sick/unlucky one. So if 99% of the prey scape, they are probably happy.

The articles says right there that the hunters are better at acceleration, deacceleration, top speed, and muscle density than their prey. The conclusion of the paper (at least as shared in its abstract) is exactly "the predator needs to be more athletic than its prey to sustain a viable success rate".

You don't need to be faster than the predator, you need to be faster than other members of the herd.

Reminds me of the Billy Connolly joke about the two camera men filming a lion. The lion sees the two camera men and proceeds to chase after them. One camera man stops and puts on a pair of running shoes. His colleague tells him “You will never outrun the lion in those”. He replied, “I don’t need to outrun the lion, I just need to outrun you!!”.

An Impala is basically a deer. 150lbs, can jump over an 8 foot fence...where a Zebra is basically a small horse. 500lbs and can only jump 2 feet in the air.

Translation for SI users:

150 lbs ≈ 70 kg

8 ft ≈ 2.4 m

500 lbs ≈ 230 kg

2 ft ≈ 60 cm