h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A person's height affects his or her ability to master certain sports. Basketball is definitely a tall person's sport. If you want to take up figure skating, though, you'll have a much easier time if you're short. For example, a lower center of gravity helps for things like spinning, where you have to remain as centered as possible around the axis of the spin. A five-degree tilt will have a tall person's head farther away from the axis than a short person's, so for any given degree of tilt, the short person is more likely to be able to 'save' the spin. It also helps to be compact, with shorter arms and legs. That body type generally can rotate more quickly, a real advantage when you're trying to do jumps that involve three 360-degree revolutions in the air.

Unfortunately I'm about 5'6" or 5'7". which is very tall for a female skater. I can jump but my spins are pretty dismal...

On the other hand, tall willowy skaters have more visually pleasing body lines, so we look very elegant until we mess up our spins and land in a heap on the ice. So there!

"Basketball is definitely a tall person's sport."

I used to work in an office complex that shared an underground shopping mall with the basketball arena for Houston's pro team. One day at lunch I was killing time looking at a store's window display. I suddenly realized that four or five guys were looking over my shoulder ... actually over my head (I'm about 5'11" tall) ... at the display. They were players for a visiting team on a break from practice. You don't realize how tall ... big, really ... those guys are until you get up close.

More recently, Houston's 7'6" center Yao Ming sort of stumbled over an opposing player who was about 5'8". Yao said he didn't even see him at first, then looking down thought a fan had come out of the stands.


The tallest basketball player is Chinese? The best golfer is black? The Red Sox win their first World Series since ... World War 1?

Yow - don't jinx 'em! *whispers: 'Go Sox!'*

It's a similar story in Rowing: at the end of the day the length of the levers is what matters. You don't tend to get the very tallest doing it, as there is the limitation of needing a crew of approximately even height.

FISA not unnaturally wanted to expand the sport into some of the less developed areas of the world, where people tend to be smaller, and thought they could do it by introducing the "lightweight" classification. Unfortunately, the first world is not short of 2m 70kg athletes...

Done and dusted! Unjinxable!!