How FIFA affects real-life football

 

Ibrahimovic said that he would ‘often spot solutions in the games that I then parlayed into real life’ as a young player. Mats Hummels, the Bayern Munich and Germany defender, has suggested that ‘maybe some people use what they learn in FIFA when they find themselves on a pitch.’

And this is from Jason Kottke. You’ll find more references on his post

 

What Germany and Belarus give to Olympics gold medalists

According to Fox Sports Australia, Croatia, Great Britain, Norway and Sweden are among nations that pay no financial incentive for winning gold, while other countries offer alternative bait — like military exemptions (South Korea), a lifetime supply of beer (Germany) and unlimited sausages (Belarus).

So, the four German gold medalists in Rio so far can wash down their $20,000 bonuses with a metric ton of Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbiers while making friends with potential Belarusian sausage kings.

Here’s the article on Yahoo! Sports

Cooling gloves “better than steroids” for athletic performance improvement

Researchers at Stanford have developed a thermal exchange glove that is able to cool a person’s core temperature very quickly — in a matter of minutes. 

The glove’s effects on athletic performance didn’t become apparent until the researchers began using the glove to cool a member of the lab – the confessed “gym rat” and frequent coauthor Vinh Cao – between sets of pull-ups. The glove seemed to nearly erase his muscle fatigue; after multiple rounds, cooling allowed him to do just as many pull-ups as he did the first time around. So the researchers started cooling him after every other set of pull-ups.

“Then in the next six weeks he went from doing 180 pull-ups total to over 620,” said Heller. “That was a rate of physical performance improvement that was just unprecedented.”

Kottke concludes:

I expect this will be either everywhere in pro sports in a couple of years or banned.