Dr. Andy Galpin

Mike is a legendary exercise physiologist at the Mayo Clinic.

One of these people actually who's probably potentially published more in this area, did a lot when we were considering in the early 2000s whether or not a two-hour marathon was even physiologically possible.

Mike did a lot of these calculations, so really involved in the field.

They connected with Mike, they published this paper, and it turns out that they were actually able to verify

that Oscar was able to hit a VO2 max of 96.7 milliliters per kilogram per minute.

If you're more familiar with absolute terms, that'd be an absolute of 7.4 liters per minute.

Just phenomenal, phenomenal record.

What's also really interesting about this story is he actually retired just a few years later at the age of 21 or 22, I think.

He had some success in competitive cycling, but perhaps not as much as one would think given his VO2 max was so extraordinary.

I think this is also an interesting message, right?

It tells you this is one of the reasons why we love sport.

It's just because you have some physiological parameter, you're tall or have some skill, that doesn't necessarily mean you're always going to win.

Endurance events are based on more than just VO2 max and sports in general have a lot of things going on in them besides just physiology.

I love physiology.

I'm obsessed with it.

But it's also why I love watching sports because you never know what's actually going to happen.

The world record for VO2 max for females is also phenomenally impressive.

This belongs to, of course, the iconic Paula Radcliffe.

She had a VO2 max reportedly of about 75 milliliters per kilogram per minute.

If you're unfamiliar with Paula, multiple-time world record holder in the marathon.