Left-handers rank high in fencing and table tennis
Credit: UNSPLASH / CC0 public domain
Being left -handed seems to be an advantage in certain sports, according to a study of athletes in the world rankings.
In a study published in Royal Society of Open SciencesThe researchers examined how left -handers are represented through different levels of competence in sports such as fences, table tennis, tennis and badminton.
Although only 1 out of 10 people were left -handed, they found that more than 1 out of 10 vacation shooters and table tennis players were left -handed. The difference was even clearer among the highest athletes in the world, with more than 1 of the table tennis players out of 5 who reached the rank of the first 50.
Researchers said it could be due to the fact that right -handed athletes are not used to competing with left -handers. Overall, they found that left -handers are not only overrepresented among athletes in several of these sports, but that this over -representation is even more pronounced at the highest performance levels. This reinforces the idea that the left -wing offers a performance advantage in certain sports.
Their results also arouse a discussion on the potential explanations of this advantage.
More information:
Prevalence of left-handers and their role in antagonistic sports: beyond simple accounts for a more in-depth distribution analysis of classification data, Royal Society of Open Sciences (2025). DOI: 10.1098 / RSOS.250303. RoyalsociéPyPublishing.org/DOI/10.1098/RSOS.250303
Supplied by the Royal Society
Quote: Lefts are classified in fences and table tennis (2025, September 24) recovered on September 24, 2025 from https://phys.org/news/2025-09-left-handers-high-table-tennis.html
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