Winners wear red, claim experts

RED, not blue, is the colour if you want to win, according to anthropologists from the University of Durham in England, who claim that wearing red gives contestants in competitive sports a distinct advantage.

The scientists saw the pattern emerge in one-on-one combat events such as boxing and soccer matches; time and time again when contestants were equally matched, those in red came out on top.

Similar findings emerged from a study of football teams wearing different colours in different matches. Dominant Premiership sides Manchester United and Arsenal wear red, as do Liverpool, who are on their way to the final of the UEFA Champions’ League, though the Blues of Chelsea seem to have bucked the trend successfully.

According to the scientists, red is a “sexually selected, testosterone-dependent signal of male quality in a variety of animals”, and wearing red makes a competitor feel confident while his or her opponent is intimidated.

When the scientists tested the theory at last year’s Olympic Games, they found that it stood up. Contestants in four combat sports - boxing, tae kwon do, Greco- Roman wrestling, and freestyle wrestling - were randomly assigned red or blue outfits, or body protectors. In every case, those wearing red won significantly more fights.

The results were “remarkably” consistent across rounds in each competition, with 16 out of 21 having more red than blue winners. Only four rounds had more blue winners.

A study of Euro 2004 in Portugal suggested colour could also influence the outcome of team events.

The researchers tracked the performance of five teams, comparing how well they did wearing predominantly red shirts with what happened when they wore a different colour.

Four played their other matches in white and one in blue, but all five had better results when playing in a red strip, the scientists found.

“Across a range of sports, we find wearing red is consistently associated with a higher probability of winning”, the researchers wrote, though that hardly accounts for the white and blue jerseys of Greece, the eventual winners.

For more immediate application, readers need only consider this weekend’s Munster SHC semi-final in Thurles, where Cork - wearers of red and winners of 29 hurling All-Irelands - take on the white and blue of Waterford, winners of just two.