Curio Cabinet / Sporty Curio

Forget the polish: they’re starting from scratch. Some Olympians who earned medals during the 2024 Paris Olympics are starting to ask for replacements after their prizes started showing signs of significant deterioration. Designed by Parisian jewelry house Chaumet and manufactured by the Monnaie de Paris, the French mint, 5,084 medals were handed out during the Paris Olympics and Paralympics last year. The medals were made with something extra inside them—a piece of the Eiffel Tower itself. These pieces came from girders and other parts of the tower that were replaced during renovations. With 18,038 iron parts making up the entirety of the tower, renovation is an ongoing process that often involves swapping out old components. But it seems that the Olympic medals that contain pieces of the tower need renovations of their own. Some athletes posted pictures of their medals deteriorating while the games were still ongoing, like American skateboarder Nyjah Huston, whose video went viral on social media. Since then, many more have spoken out about the issue. The affected medals are described as having “crocodile skin” from corrosion. The actual cause of the damage is unknown, but the Monnaie de Paris is set to begin making replacements in the coming weeks. Replacing over 5,000 medals sounds like an Olympic feat of its own.

Before you checkmate, check your outfit. Living chess legend Magnus Carlsen was briefly barred from competing at the recent World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships after he tried to play the game while wearing jeans. The World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships are where the best of the best in chess gather to compete against one another under tight time constraints. The championships are actually a combination of the Rapid and Blitz competitions, which both have men and women’s competitions. They’ve only been going on since 2012, and are the largest competitions in that format recognized by the International Chess Federation (FIDE). Competitors are allowed three minutes and two seconds of additional time per move in Blitz, and 15 minutes and 10 seconds in Rapid, making for blindingly fast games compared to the conventional format. But fast doesn’t mean casual, and Carlsen was barred for trying to play in jeans, which went against regulations set by FIDE. He was also fined $200 and given a chance to change, but refused on principle. Carlsen was eventually given a pass and allowed to compete in jeans, but the temporary delay caused a public outcry and made headlines around the world for highlighting FIDE’s strict dress code. You don’t have to dress smart to be smart, but you have to dress smart to play chess.
 

[Image description: Elaborate pieces of an 18th-19th century chess set with pieces carved to look like people, ships, elephants, and soldiers on horseback.] Credit & copyright: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Chess set, Russian, Kholmogory. Late 18th–early 19th century. Public Domain, Creative Commons Zero license.
 

There are men, there are legends, and then there’s Thomas Stevens. On this day in 1887, Stevens became the first man to cycle around the world, and he did it all on one of the world’s most ridiculous-looking bikes: a penny farthing. Originally from England, Stevens moved to San Francisco, California, when he was 17. There, he fell in love with the city’s growing cycling scene. In 1884, Stevens became the first person to ride a bicycle across North America, traveling around 3,700 miles from San Francisco to Boston on a penny farthing, an early type of bicycle featuring an oversized front wheel with direct-drive pedals (no chains) and a smaller rear wheel. The front wheel of a penny farthing often came up to shoulder height for most riders, so simply getting on and off was a challenge. Not to mention the lack of suspension on rough 19th century roads transferring every bump directly to the rider. Nevertheless, after his successful trek across North America, Stevens decided to embark on a much more ambitious journey. Riding on a penny farthing yet again, he traveled east from San Francisco and rode all the way to Yokohama, Japan (with some boat rides along the way, of course). When he finally returned to San Francisco after braving inclement weather in Iran and some bandits here and there, he estimated that he must have ridden around 13,500 miles in all. Just imagine the saddle sores.

[Image description: A man in an old-fashioned outfit with a black hat and boots riding a penny farthing (also called an “ordinary”). The bicycle has one enormous front wheel and one smaller back wheel.] Credit & copyright: Archives of Pearson Scott Foresman, donated to the Wikimedia Foundation. This work has been released into the public domain by its author, Pearson Scott Foresman. This applies worldwide.
 

You’ve heard about the 12 Days of Christmas, but have you heard of the seven days of the Great World Race? Winter marathons are tough, but none may be tougher than the one that starts—yes, starts—in Antarctica. Last month, 60 runners from around the world ran around the world for a week straight, competing in one of the most grueling competitions in the sport. Each day, the runners ran a marathon on a different continent, with the first race taking place in Wolf’s Fang, Antarctica. Immediately after, with less than a full day to recover, the runners were at it again in Cape Town, South Africa, then Perth, Australia, the European and Asian sides of Istanbul and Turkey, then Cartagena, Colombia. They finally ended their journey in Miami Beach, Florida. The runners were ranked based on their cumulative time across all marathons, with American David Kilgore placing first in the men’s division with a time of 23 hours, 40 minutes, and 43 seconds. Another American, Hillary Kupish, placed first in the women’s division with a time of 22 hours, 25 minutes, and 22 seconds. One runner, Reg Willick of Canada, finished in 19th place at the age of 62. It would take a world class athlete just to start this race, let alone finish with an impressive time.

[Image description: A race track with three numbered lanes visible reading “1”, “2”, and “3.”] Credit & copyright: Lukas Hartmann, Pexels
 

That’s quite a ballpark figure. Last Sunday, Juan Soto signed a $765 million, 15-year deal with the New York Mets, the largest contract in MLB history. However, the question of exactly what that means for the Mets remains. By signing with the Mets, Soto will be leaving behind his beloved Yankees while breaking the already staggering $700 million record set by Shohei Ohtani when he signed with the Dodgers. While the Yankees offered a similar offer of $760 million for 16 years, Soto went with the Mets, possibly due to the latter’s offer of a free luxury suite for Soto’s family at Citi Field. Rumors aside, Soto's record-breaking deal isn’t entirely unexpected. Since Steven Cohen became majority owner of the Mets in 2020, the team has been acquiring talent with eye-watering offers. In 2023, they had the largest payroll in the league, but the spending doesn’t seem to have paid off yet. The Mets haven't won the World Series in nearly 40 years, and had a disappointing 2023 season (75–87), though they managed to rally in the last half of 2024 (89–73) for a respectable showing. Maybe Soto’s the last piece of this very pricey puzzle.

These weren't Christmas balls with gowns and dancing, but the kind you kick on the field with cleats. Soccer, or football as it’s called in many parts of the world, was once a holiday staple in England. Christmas Day football used to be an indispensable part of the day’s celebrations, but now it’s mostly been forgotten even in the football-crazy nation. A game of football on Christmas might sound odd, but it made perfect sense at the beginning of the 20th century. There wasn’t always much for people to do after feasting with their families on holiday grub. The answer to boredom, of course, was a game of football, and the tradition grew to involve much-publicized professional matches that people could watch instead of working up a sweat themselves. Christmas and football were so culturally intertwined in Europe that it even contributed to the famous Christmas Truce of 1914, where British and German soldiers in WWI met on no-man's-land for a friendly match. However, the last professional game on Christmas in England took place in 1965, and while nearby Scotland continued the tradition until 1971, Christmas Day football now seems to be a thing of the past. Meanwhile, across the pond in the U.S., there is a relative glut of various NFL and NBA games to watch on Christmas Day. Happy (American) Footballmas!

How can a team that’s suffered its share of losses still be a winner? When it’s the San Marino national football team. This scrappy soccer team is making a surprising showing in the Nations League group, where they’re competing for a spot in the 2026 World Cup. As it stands, it’s unlikely that San Marino will make it to the World Cup, but the possibility is impressive considering their overall record. The team made its debut in 1986, and since then, they’ve played a total of 216 games. Of those, they have lost 202. Of the times they didn’t lose, they have played to a draw 11 times and have only won three games—all against Lichtenstein, including their latest 3-1 win on November 25. A small, landlocked nation located within Italy, San Marino only has a population of about 35,000. With such a limited pool to choose from, it’s a wonder that they’ve managed to field an entire team of players that can compete at the international level. Though victories are scarce for the team, each one is greatly appreciated. After their latest match against Lichtenstein, San Marino soccer federation president Marco Tura told the press, “I even cried among the boys, I hugged the captain and it was an incredible thing.” That’s a team that anyone could root for.

An egg-laying chicken can cost around $20, while something fancy like a parrot can cost a few hundred. Meanwhile, Anthony Edwards of the Minnesota Timberwolves just paid $35,000 for the bird he showed to the Sacramento Kings during a recent game. It may seem like an eye-watering amount of money for a rude gesture, but players are often given fines for on-court behavior. Off-court actions can also lead to fines, like in the case of Vladimir Radmanovic, who was a forward for the Los Angeles Lakers in 2007. Radmanovic was fined $500,000 for violating his contract which forbade him from engaging in risky activities. That year, he suffered a separated shoulder during a snowboarding accident. The largest fines, however, are usually reserved for team owners. Mark Cuban was once fined $750,000 during the 2022-23 season for tanking the Dallas Mavericks to keep a top 10 protected draft pick, while Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling was fined $2.5 million and banned from the NBA for life after some of his racist comments came to light. The largest fine ever, though, involves the Timberwolves again. In 2000, the team was fined $3.5 million for violating the salary cap while negotiating with Joe Smith. He must have been no average Joe.

[Image description: A black-and-white photo of a basketball hoop with a wooden backboard.] Credit & copyright: antonio filigno, Pexels
 

It seems unthinkable but soon, every A’s game will be an away game for Oakland. One year ago today, MLB owners voted to move the Oakland Athletics from California to Las Vegas, Nevada, and fans are still struggling with the decision. Since 1968, the Oakland A’s have been a fixture of the Bay Area city. Before they arrived in Oakland, however, they had already moved before. The team was originally from Philadelphia, where they were founded in 1901. They then moved to Kansas City, Missouri, in 1955 and stayed there until 1968, when they moved to Oakland. The A’s have won four World Series titles while in Oakland, and although they haven’t won a title since 1989, they maintained a loyal fan base. The A’s will make their latest move to Las Vegas at the end of the 2024 season. The decision to move was a complicated one, owing to issues with the aging Oakland Coliseum and declining attendance. The team is already out of the city ahead of their planned move. They’ll be playing the rest of their home games at Sutter Health Park in West Sacramento, which makes attendance a challenge for many fans from the Bay Area. The team’s departure is also a heavy blow for Oakland sports fans, who lost the Raiders in 2020 when the football team also moved to Las Vegas. It seems that Sin City can’t get enough of teams from The Town.

[Image description: A baseball glove and several baseballs lying on green grass.] Credit & copyright: Steshka Willems, Pexels
 

Some people just can’t take it easy. American boxer Ray Charles Leonard, better known as Sugar Ray Leonard, retired for the first time on this day in 1982, but he couldn’t stay out of the ring for long. Born on May 17, 1956 in North Carolina, Leonard is widely considered the greatest professional boxer still alive today. As an amateur, he won gold in the light-welterweight class at the Montreal 1976 Olympic Games. As a professional, he won 36 out of 40 matches (25 by knockout), thanks in large part to his superior finesse and footwork. Leonard retired for the first time in 1982, but returned to the ring briefly in 1984 before retiring again. He came out of retirement yet again in 1986 to fight Marvelous Marvin Hagler the following year and emerged victorious with the WBC middleweight title. He retired for the penultimate time in 1991, but came out of retirement for the third and final time in 1997 for one last bout, which he lost. After retiring from boxing for good that same year, he continued to work as a commentator. Today, he continues to make TV appearances and focuses on his philanthropic efforts through the Sugar Ray Leonard Foundation, which raises awareness and funding for type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Who says a boxer can’t help knock out societal problems?

[Image description: Boxing gloves against a gray background.] Credit & copyright: Mikhail Nilov, Pexels
 

Get your pom poms ready, it’s about to get spirited in here! The first organized cheer took place on this day in 1898. While it might seem inconceivable to hold a modern sports match without a squad of cheerleaders to hype up players and spectators, that wasn’t always the case. In the 1890s, universities had pep clubs, which were composed of male students who cheered their teams from the sidelines, but they didn’t really interact with the crowd. Princeton University was the first to come up with an official cheer for their team in 1884, but the pep club was in charge of chanting it. The first instance of someone leading a cheer together occurred in 1898, when a medical student named Johnny Campbell at the University of Minnesota led the crowd to chant “Rah, Rah, Rah! Ski-U-Mah! Hoo-Rah! Varsity!” while their team was struggling. It was simple, and the cheer wasn’t anything new, but Campbell’s decision to lead the crowd was novel, and the idea stuck. More than a century later, cheerleading has evolved into an acrobatic sport of its own. Once a male-dominated activity, female cheerleaders took the helm during and after WWII. Squads today also perform a variety of tumbles, flips, and lifts to keep the crowd engaged, and cheerleading squads often compete against each other in contests of their own. Of course, that begs the question: who cheers the cheerleaders?

[Image description: Blue and white pom poms on a yellow auditorium seat.] Credit & copyright: cottonbro studio, Pexels
 

Happy birthday, soccer! Soccer (or football, as it’s known in many parts of the world) became its own, distinct sport on this day in 1863, and in the process led to the creation of other, related sports. Ball games that are primarily played with the feet have been around for millennia and have existed in one form or another in just about every culture on Earth. Soccer as it is played today has its roots in Victorian England. Various, loosely-regulated versions of “football” were played throughout England’s history with rules that could vary between towns. Increased urbanization in the 19th century forced larger groups of people into smaller areas, making it more important for them to agree on a set of rules. Eventually, several football clubs in and around London came together to develop those rules, and in 1863 they printed a standardized version of them, forming the Football Association (FA) and the sport of association football. The new rules most notably forbade the use of hands to carry the ball, distinguishing it from the sport of rugby, another popular game. In time, people started using the nicknames “rugger” for rugby and “assoccer” for association football, which was shortened to “soccer.” By the late 1800s, soccer was a popular spectator sport in England that drew tens of thousands per game. In the early 1900s, the sport made its way to the U.S., where Americans developed another version of it combining elements of soccer and rugby: gridiron, or American football. It was like a football family reunion.

[Image description: A soccer ball on an empty soccer field at sunset.] Credit & copyright: Markus Spiske, Pexels
 

Is nothing sacred anymore? The conker community has been left shaken after potentially devastating allegations of cheating have emerged following the annual World Conker Championships. Conkers is a traditional English game involving the seeds of horse chestnut trees, also known as—you guessed it—conkers. Players thread a string through their seed, then take turns whacking it against an opponent’s conker. If a player’s conker breaks or is lost, they lose. This year, around 200 conkers enthusiasts gathered in the village of Southwick to crown a new champion. At first, it seemed that 82-year-old veteran of the sport Dave Jakins was the clear winner of the men’s division, but not long after being declared the winner, the runner-up started slinging accusations of cheating. Alastair Johnson-Ferguson, who lost to Jakins, accused the latter of using a steel chestnut in the finals, telling The Telegraph that his chestnut “disintegrated in one hit.” Prior to going against Johnson-Ferguson, Jakins had advanced through the quarter and semi finals with similar one-hit knockouts. Organizers announced that an investigation has been opened against Jakins, and they were able to verify that Jakins did indeed have a steel chestnut in his pocket, but it’s unclear whether he used it against opponents or whether it was simply a harmless prop; the investigation is ongoing. Regardless, Jakins was dethroned as “King Conker” (overall champion) after being defeated by Kelci Banschbach, a 34-year-old from Indianapolis, U.S., who won the women’s division and is the first American to ever be crowned “Queen Conker.” It’s been a while since America has had royalty.

This fall, there’s a Kraken hockey's gender barrier. The game between the Seattle Krakens and the St. Louis Blues earlier this week was the first North American game of the 2024-2025 NHL season. It was also a significant first of another kind: the debut of the first female coach in NHL history, Jessica Campbell. Campbell was born on June 24, 1992 in Saskatchewan, Canada, and she has been carving her path with ice skates for most of her life. She played hockey alongside male teammates until she was 17, led Canada in the under-18 world championships to gold and went on to lead Cornell University to three Ivy League titles between 2010 and 2014, becoming team captain in her senior year. She then played professionally in Canada and Sweden before becoming the first woman in a coaching position in men’s hockey when she joined the German national team in 2022. That same year, she joined Seattle’s affiliate team, the Coachella Valley Firebirds, until she officially signed on with the Krakens as an assistant coach in July of this year. While Campbell made history by being the first female coach in the NHL, she doesn’t believe she will be the last. She told the press, “Hopefully somebody else will have a door held open for them versus them having to push it open and find ways to unlock it. I look at the other women around me and other people in the industry doing their piece and doing a fantastic job of it. And it's part of a movement. It's part of, I think, really important change.” That’s a goal any team can cheer for.

[Image description: ] Credit & copyright: Tima Miroshnichenko, Pexels
 

He was a giant among giants, and not just because of his immense stature. Dikembe Mutombo, an NBA Hall of Famer and a Global Ambassador for the league, has passed away at the age of 58. Mutombo succumbed to brain cancer on October 1 after first revealing his diagnosis two years ago. Born on June 25, 1966, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mutombo was considered one of the greatest defensive players in the league’s history. But along with the former center’s impenetrable defense was a playfulness that won him the affection of basketball fans around the world. His most endearing trademark was blocking shots by smacking the ball high into the air, then wagging his finger at the defeated shooter with a mischievous grin. Mutombo was humble and generous off the court, though, using his stardom to help build hospitals in central Africa. After retiring from the sport, he became the first Global Ambassador for the NBA and used his position to further his philanthropic and humanitarian causes. His son, Ryan, paid tribute to him on social media, saying, "My dad is my hero because he simply cared. He remains the purest heart I have ever known." That’s surely nothing to wag a finger at.

[Image description: A black-and-white photo of a basketball hoop.] Credit & copyright: antonio filigno, Pexels
 

Sure, anyone can fly around the world, but why do that when you can take the scenic route? American cyclist Lael Wilcox just finished circumnavigating the world on a bike and set a new women’s record earlier this month. She began her journey back in May in Chicago, Illinois, where she returned 108 days and 18,000 miles later to break the previous record of 124 days. And no, she couldn’t ride her bike over the ocean, so she did have to take a plane a few times, but she also had to abide by a strict set of rules laid out by the Guinness World Records for her ride to count. Among the rules was that she had to ride at least 18,000 miles, and she had to cover that distance while going in one direction. During the journey, any time spent on alternate forms of transportation like planes and ferries still counted toward her time. To complete the ride according to the rules, Wilcox had to ride through the U.S., Europe, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand before reaching the U.S. again on her last leg to Chicago. That's a lot of time and a lot of places to ride alone, but she did have some company. Her wife trailed loosely behind her in a car, and during her journey, she was joined by thousands of cyclists at various times (per the rules, she wasn’t allowed to draft behind them). By the end of the journey, she had ridden in freezing temperatures and alongside busy highways, but despite all that, Wilcox told The New York Times, “It was probably the most fun ride of [her] life.” That’s a lot of work for a joyride!

[Image description: A close-up photo of a bike tire surrounded by autumn leaves.] Credit & copyright: Nikita Lyamkin, Pexels
 

Nothing can slow this woman down. Jodie Grinham of Britain just won a bronze in archery, making history as the first ever Paralympian to medal while openly pregnant. Grinham, who also brought home a silver medal in 2016 in mixed team compound and a gold this year in the same event, recently won her first individual medal in individual compound. This latest Olympic medal is particularly noteworthy since Grinham earned it while 28 weeks pregnant. Being seven months along, Grinham’s training has involved learning to work around her prominent baby bump by adjusting her equipment and modifying her stance so that she can hold and fire her bow. Concerned about the possibility of going into labor prematurely, as she did during the birth of her now two-year-old son, Grinham went in for check ups prior to competition and took time to check that there was a hospital near where she would be competing. On an athlete’s busy schedule, that should definitely count as a labor of love.

[Image description: Two archery targets, one with an arrow through the yellow bullseye.] Credit & copyright: Pexels, Mikhail Nilov