Does The World Cup Winner Keep the Trophy? 🏆

I don’t feel “star-struck” much these days (I have 258,332 followers on TikTok, not to brag), but when Frank Michael Smith asked me to host a day of GeoSports, I was genuinely left speechless.

If you don’t know what GeoSports is, I actually just had Frank on my podcast to talk about it. If you missed my day of questions (Tuesday), they’ll be at the end of this email.

In today’s newsletter:

🗞 The Big Story: Does The World Cup Winner Keep the Trophy?

📉 Biggest Loser: Why Are Golf Courses Always 18 Holes?

🏆 Winner’s Circle: The Sports Performance Hack BETTER than Steroids

Does the winner of the World Cup actually get to keep the trophy?

The short answer is no, but the reason why is actually a lot more complicated than you might think.

Unique Piece: Before handing out the trophy most fans recognize today, FIFA used to award a version called Victory, which depicted the Greek goddess Nike holding a gold-plated chalice.

This version was actually given to teams to keep for the four years between tournaments, starting in 1930, and it was even stolen once during a public exhibition in London just a few months before the 1966 World Cup, before it was eventually recovered by a dog named Pickles.

Then, after winning the tournament a record-breaking three times between 1958 and 1970, Brazil was given the trophy to keep permanently, leading FIFA to commission a new award ahead of the 1974 World Cup.

And they didn’t hold back.

New Look: After receiving 53 design submissions from sculptors in seven different countries, they settled on an Italian sculptor who created the 14.4-inch (36.5 cm) tall, 13 lb (5.0 kg), 18-karat gold design that we know today.

The award, now simply called the World Cup Trophy, depicts two human figures lifting Earth, and even though it’s actually hollow inside, it was still rumored to cost around $50,000 to make and was recently valued at $20 million, making it the most expensive trophy in all of sports.

Still, that’s not why the winning country’s not allowed to keep it.

Safe Keeping: After this year’s winner hoists the trophy, it’ll actually be returned to FIFA headquarters in Zurich and likely won’t make its next public appearance until the drawing for the 2030 World Cup. Instead, players on the winning team will receive a gold-plated replica, along with a gold medal. Some countries might even commission miniature replicas for each player.

This is all likely an effort to protect the real trophy from being stolen again, as the original Victory trophy was stolen in 1983, when thieves broke into the Brazilian Football headquarters in Rio, took the trophy from its bulletproof case, and, according to rumors, melted it down and sold it.

What a shame.

Why is a golf course always exactly 18 holes?

While you might assume that it’s just a completely random number, it’s actually the result of one of the most consequential decisions in sports history that no one seems to know anything about.

No Rhyme or Reason: Before golf was banned by King James II of Scotland in 1457 because it distracted men from their archery practice, the number of holes actually varied from course to course, depending on the amount of land each one had at its disposal.

This meant that from the 1500s to as recently as 1851, courses were built with as few as 5 holes and as many as 25.

And the world’s oldest and most influential golf course was no exception. In fact, for most of St. Andrew’s history, members would play 22-holes, 11 going away from the clubhouse, and then those same 11 holes in reverse order coming back.

But then, in 1764, everything changed…

Change for Challenge: That year, St. Andrew’s decided that the first two holes were too short, so they combined them, increasing their total distance from an estimated 200 yards each to 400 yards each. This meant that golfers would now play 9 holes going out and 9 holes coming back in, making the course 18 holes.

But just because St. Andrews made the change to 18 holes doesn’t mean that every other golf course magically followed suit. In fact, as I mentioned earlier, a golf course was built in Prestwick, Scotland, as recently as 1851 and opened with just 12 holes.

Request to Standardize: However, over time, the influential members of St. Andrews who joined other nearby clubs wanted the same rules and standard round that they had at the Old Course.

But it wouldn’t be until almost 100 years later that the second 18-hole golf course would officially open in nearby Montrose, Scotland, in 1863:

Oldest 18 Hole Courses:

And it would actually take another 87 years for the Rules of Golf to stipulate that an official round consists of exactly 18 holes.

But honestly, I wouldn’t be opposed to changing some courses back to 12.

What’s this strange-looking device that a reporter just found in the Cubs dugout?

Well, it turns out it’s actually a more effective performance enhancer than steroids, but not for the reason you might think.

Body Temperature Regulators: In the early 2000s, the US Military needed a portable way to quickly cool down soldiers in Iraq. So, they enlisted the help of some Stanford researchers who had recently published a study about why bears don’t overheat.

What they found was that, just like bears, humans have what are called “glabrous” skin areas on our palms, feet soles, and parts of our face. These are hairless areas that contain blood vessels that can quickly dilate and contract.

Limitations: That last part is especially important because it means heat can be quickly extracted from the blood vessels in those parts of our bodies, which, in turn, helps decrease a human’s overall core body temperature.

Still, even though these effects were demonstrated in several clinical trials throughout the 2010s, this research was largely limited to scientific use, in part because the earliest versions of these devices were bulky and cost $2,500.

But then, in 2020, everything changed.

Product Placement: This was the year a Navy veteran and former basketball player named Craig Gile co-founded CoolMitt, a $995 cooling device that went viral after tennis legend Novak Djokovic wore it.

Then, two years later, a company out of Boulder, Colorado, created the device called the Narwhal, which currently retails for $399 for a set of two.

But how do these things actually work?

Methodology: Both devices pretty much do the same thing. Users either hold onto metal tubs or insert their hands into gloves when they’re warm. Then these devices will pump cool fluid across the athlete’s palm, targeting a temperature between 45 and 60 degrees Fahrenheit.

This is important because if you were to simply grab a cube of ice, the blood vessels in your palms would constrict in response to the cold, causing you to retain the heat you’re trying to get rid of, resulting in the exact opposite effect.

Instead, with these fine-tuned palm cooling devices, as blood passes through the dilated blood vessels in your palm, heat will be extracted, and cooler blood returned to the rest of your body. In fact, it typically takes only about 30 seconds to feel the effects, which include improved endurance and a slower heart rate.

Some research even suggests that palm cooling can provide effects similar to, or even greater than, those of steroids for muscle recovery and increases in muscle volume during strength training.

Plus, it’s perfectly legal!

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👋🏻 Happy Friday!

Let’s see how you would have done:

Q1: In an attempt to attract more fans and revenue to the NFL’s smallest-market team, from 1933 to 1994 the Green Bay Packers played 2-3 “home” games per year in this nearby city.

Answer: Milwaukee, WI

Q2: In 1969, an MLB expansion team went bankrupt after just one season and was bought by Bud Selig, who moved it to Milwaukee to become the Brewers. What city did this team originally play in?

Answer: Seattle, WA

Q3: In 2015, Frank Kaminsky and the Wisconsin Badgers ended Kentucky’s undefeated 38-0 season with a 71-64 win in the Final Four played at this converted NFL stadium.

Answer: Lucas Oil Stadium (Indianapolis, IN)

Q4: In 2022, the Green Bay Packers played their first regular-season international game at the only NFL stadium ever built outside the United States, which is located in this city.

Answer: Tottenham Hotspur Stadium (London, England)

Q5: The last time the Milwaukee Bucks held the number 1 overall pick was in 2005, when they drafted a 7-footer from this city.

Answer: Melbourne, Australia

Here was my score (even though I wrote the questions, I couldn’t pick Melbourne out on a map, clearly):

GeoSports · July 14th

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883 / 1,000