Meta-analysis of the red advantage in combat sports.

ABSTRACT: Research has previously documented that across a range of Olympic combat sports, wearing red is associated with a higher probability of winning contests, especially when bouts are close. Yet, the hypothesis for a red advantage has not been systematically examined across multiple tournaments. Here, we report 6,589 contest outcomes for boxing, taekwondo, and wrestling from seven Summer Olympic Games (1996-2020) and nine World Boxing Championships (2005-2021). Using meta-analytic techniques, we found 50.5% wins by red for the overall data, which was not a statistically significant bias. Analyses of close contests resulted in 51.5% red wins, also not significantly different from the null expectation of equal proportions. Before 2005, however, when the red advantage was first reported and prior

SUBMITTER: Peperkoorn LS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11680956 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature