Right, and during that time, he was respirating at around 20X the rate of you or I sitting here. 1 MET, or Metabolic Equivalent Task, is about 3.5 mL of oxygen

Right, and during that time, he was respirating at around 20X the rate of you or I sitting here. 1 MET, or Metabolic Equivalent Task, is about 3.5 mL of oxygen per kilogram per minute, which is roughly equivalent to the energy expended when sitting quietly. [1] The Vo2max of high-level athletes runs up to 97.5mL/kg [2] Sure, he used it for 'only' 40% of the race. In a national championship where fractions of a percent of O2 uptake make the difference in winning. The point is that he still wore it, running in the pack of a national championship, for nearly two and a half miles (400m=2.585mi), over 11 minutes, respirating at a level that you literally cannot imagine if you can post that comment. The mask neither slowed him enough to take him out of contention, nor did it create sufficient oxygen debt that he could not win. IOW, the mask had a completely marginal effect at levels of respiration more than an order of magnitude beyond any ordinary activity. Moreover, since air resistance increases roughly with the square of velocity, a first approximation of any mask drag or throttling he experienced vs normal respiration is not 20X, but more like 400x what a normal person would experience. And even your own citation points to it being "uncomfortable, sticky or sweaty", in the context of a national championship race, not being any kind of oxygen hinderence. And yet you want to claim that this can be ignored because he didn't wear it the whole time. So, yes, everyone knows that masks can be mildly uncomfortable, even during exercise. But they are a helluva lot less uncomfortable than enduring that respiratory/vascular disease, and a lot more ethical than spreading it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolic_equivalent_of_task https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolic_equivalent_of_task [2] https://www.topendsports.com/testing/records/vo2max.htm https://www.topendsports.com/testing/records/vo2max.htm