Forum: sports.stackexchange.com
Tags: <technique><international-sports>
Title: Are there sports in which being smaller than your adversary can be a distinct advantage?
Question: Many sports put forward tall players. I know that everybody can play any sport, but I've noticed that in professional teams (basketball, volleyball, soccer, tennis, ...) there is a tendency to see tall people. It's maybe due to advantages that high sizing can provide. It's depending of each sport. So I would like to know if there is some sports for which the fact to be smaller than his adversary can be a distinct advantage?

Answers:
sents: text: So I would like to know if there is some sports for which the fact to be smaller than his adversary can be a distinct advantage?
text: Yes they do exist.
text: But here's one example:
text: In horse racing, having a smaller and lighter rider is more advantageous.
text: It lets the horse sprint faster because there's less weight on its back.
text: Source: taken of wikipedia
answer_details: author: sports.stackexchange.com/users/2128/Iancovici
score: 10
sents: text: Gymnasts are also usually quite small, there is actually some debate over whether gymnastics can affect growth (but I don't think there is much evidence behind this).
text: According to this website American gold medalist Gabrielle Douglas is four feet, eleven inches, and 90 pounds .
text: http://www.boston.com/sports/blogs/statsdriven/2012/08/the_bodies_of_champion_gymnast.html Also height isn't always an advantage in soccer, just look at the average height of the Barcelona team (Messi, Xavi, Iniesta, Pedro etc).
answer_details: author: sports.stackexchange.com/users/1947/RoB
score: 9
sents: text: In cricket being short may not help you in selection in the team.
text: But if a player is a batsman, he may get some advantages in batting.
text: (or disadvantages for tall players do not apply)
text: Tall players have to bend more than short players while batting.
text: Bowlers have to bowl under their shoulders otherwise it will considered a No ball (after two bouncers).
text: So they have to shorten their length.
text: They can play yorker length ball better than tall players because normally short players have high backlift and tall players have to keep the bat lower while playing the shot.
text: However, if you are a bowler (specially fast bowler), being a taller is an advantage.
answer_details: author: sports.stackexchange.com/users/540/hims056
score: 7
sents: text: I can think of a couple instances where it is an advantage for the athlete to be small.
text: They are both "racing" situations, and the athlete in question is a "controller."
text: The first is the "coxswain" (caller) on a rowing team.
text: His function is necessary, but the smaller he is, the less burden on his teammates.
text: The second, as someone else pointed out, is a jockey on a horse, where the jockey has the dual role of controlling the horse and not being a burden on the horse.
answer_details: author: sports.stackexchange.com/users/1738/Tom Au
score: 5
sents: text: In Curling athletes with a low center of gravity (smaller one generally) are helped in the stability of the slip.
text: The stability of the slip is one of the most important feature to be a strong curler.
text: During the action of broom is important the hands and back power, while during the slip is important to have muscolar legs, so power and compact athletes have a slight head start
answer_details: author: sports.stackexchange.com/users/1831/Ale
score: 3
sents: text: Besides all sports that have been mentioned already, I would like to add shorttrack to that list.
text: Being short and having little weight gives the rider an advantage to be more agile while fighting for the best positions and taking over other riders.
text: However, this does not mean that taller riders cannot compete with the best, since they might bring more power.
text: Ter Mors , for example, is often by far the tallest rider on the ice.
answer_details: author: sports.stackexchange.com/users/9240/Braamstruik
score: 3
sents: text: Distance running is another sport where a smaller athlete may have an advantage.
text: When work = mass * distance, an athlete with smaller mass will do less work to cover the distance.
text: If two athletes have the same capacity for rate of work - that is, they can do the same amount of work in a given span of time - the lighter one will win a race.
text: There are limits to this - at some point being lighter limits your capacity to do work -
text: but in general lighter is better for distance runners.
answer_details: author: sports.stackexchange.com/users/35/pjmorse
score: 2
sents: text: Shooting From wikipedia : in shooting sports, a shorter shooter can maintain better balance when standing for long periods of time holding a gun, as well as keep their gun steady.
answer_details: author: sports.stackexchange.com/users/1831/Ale
score: 2
sents: text: Motorsports, like most other racing sports, typically favors drivers that are lightweight, which gives smaller, lighter drivers an advantage.
text: While most motorsport organizations feature a minimum chassis weight in the regulations, this often does not take driver weight into consideration.
text: This allows cars with lighter drivers to have a slight weight advantage against cars with heavier drivers.
text: This is prevalent in open-wheel racing, particularly karts, where the karts themselves are all but equal in weight, and
text: the differences mainly come from the driver's weight.
text: TL;DR,
text: Regulated car weight + lighter driver allows for faster, more agile movement vs. cars with heavier drivers.
answer_details: author: sports.stackexchange.com/users/11757/Noir Antares
score: 2
sents: text: Rock climbing Lead climbing and bouldering nowadays tends to favour smaller / lighter people than taller / heavier.
text: I know this can end up as a long debate, but for a shorter person looking for a sport this is something to look into!
answer_details: author: sports.stackexchange.com/users/17141/Juuso Nykänen
score: 2

Summary of the answers:
There are a larhe number of sports in which being small is a definite advantage. These include horse racing, gymnastics, rowing, motor racing, shooting, rock climbing and long distance running.
There is a number of sports where a smaller frame is actually a benefit. These include horse racing, gymnastics, cricket, rowing, short track, distance running, shooting, motorsports and different types of climbing. This is often related to balance and less weight, even though certain sports like gymnastics can arguably hinder development.