Research roundup

Finger length indicates athletic success, and other interesting findings

DAVID KARP, THE MARTLET (UNIVERSITY OF VICTORIA)

VICTORIA — When most of us study sports, we do so from our couch with a remote control in hand. Some enthusiastic researchers go a little more in depth. Here’s the latest in sports research from around the world.

Pointing a finger at success

Look at your fingers. If your ring finger is longer than your index finger, you might have what it takes to be a superstar athlete.

That’s the message of a study by two researchers from England’s Durham University, published in the August edition of the Journal of Personality. The researchers examined the digit ratio — the length of the second finger compared to the fourth finger — and its effect on athletic success. Scientists believe the digit ratio is affected by the amount of testosterone a person is exposed to before birth.

The researchers examined 155 British athletes who played university rugby, soccer or basketball. They found that their digit ratio was correlated to the level at which they played sports, for both women and men.

They suggested that people with low digit ratios, and thus high prenatal testosterone levels, may get less tired when they exercise and enjoy sports more as a result. “The sporting benefits of a low digit ratio may be as much in the body as in the mind,” they concluded.

Covering up racism

Sports Illustrated is showing more black people on its covers, according to a study published in June’s Journal of American Culture.

Three U.S. researchers looked at all Sports Illustrated (SI) covers featuring white or black baseball, basketball or football players from 1954 to 2004. The review of the 2,057 covers found that pre-1975, only 24 per cent of covers showed black athletes.

The researchers “determined a critical ‘tipping point,’ a time when black athletes appeared on SI covers in comparable numbers to white athletes. This time period was 1975-79.”

The study focused on comparing how often blacks appeared alone on a cover versus how often whites appeared alone, arguing that depicting an athlete alone rather than in a group gives him more prestige.

“In the 1975 and later time period, whites appear individually on 4.3 per cent more SI covers than they do in group photographs while blacks appear on 3.5 per cent more covers individually than in groups — comparable proportions. However, during the pre-1975 era, blacks are featured individually only 0.9 per cent of the time more often than they are in groups while, whites appear individually 15.7 per cent more frequently than they do in group photographs.”

The research found that modern SI covers reflect the actual proportion of black and white athletes.

Will Beckham be as successful?

Signing soccer phenomenon Freddy Adu was a good value for Major League Soccer (MLS).

Adu, the 18-year-old American soccer star, joined the MLS’s D.C. United when he was only 14. Adu later played for Real Salt Lake before leaving the MLS in July to join Portuguese club Benfica.

The study by the University of Delaware’s Timothy DeSchriver was published in the Journal of Sport Management in July. DeSchriver studied all 150 MLS games from the 2004 season to determine what effect Adu had on attendance.

“Holding all else constant, we can estimate that the presence of Freddy Adu at games in which DC United was the road team produced an additional 10,958 spectators,” wrote DeSchriver.

This means Adu was responsible for bringing out 164,370 extra fans in 2004. DeSchriver looked at average ticket prices, merchandise expenditures and concession purchases to estimate that these new fans generated US$3,258,209 in revenue — significantly more than Adu’s US$500,000 salary that year.

The study found that only fireworks and the American national team were more effective at attracting fans. “Holding all else constant, it is estimated that an additional 14,566 spectators went to games at which fireworks were performed and another 20,577 spectators attended games in which the U.S.A. National Team was also playing,” the study said.

Swimming harms lumbar discs

A study by eight Japanese researchers has found that excessive swimming can mess up your back.

The University of Tsukuba researchers, who were all medical doctors, studied 58 elite swimmers and 38 recreational swimmers in their study published in August’s American Journal of Sports Medicine.

The researchers found that 68 per cent of the elite swimmers had lumbar disc degeneration, while only 29 per cent of the recreational swimmers had the same back problem. It’s unclear what the consequences of the degeneration are — the study found no relationship between lumbar disc degeneration and back pain.

“Between these two groups, the most significant differences were observed in variables such as training intensity and duration and distance of swimming, thus leading us to consider that a competitive load of swimming exaggerates the lumbar invertible disk degeneration,” the study concluded.