@article{ref1,
title="A relationship between attractiveness and performance in professional cyclists",
journal="Biology letters",
year="2014",
author="Postma, Erik",
volume="10",
number="2",
pages="20130966-20130966",
abstract="Females often prefer to mate with high quality males, and one aspect of quality is physical performance. Although a preference for physically fitter males is therefore predicted, the relationship between attractiveness and performance has rarely been quantified. Here, I test for such a relationship in humans and ask whether variation in (endurance) performance is associated with variation in facial attractiveness within elite professional cyclists that finished the 2012 Tour de France. I show that riders that performed better were more attractive, and that this preference was strongest in women not using a hormonal contraceptive. Thereby, I show that, within this pre-selected but relatively homogeneous sample of the male population, facial attractiveness signals endurance performance. Provided that there is a relationship between performance-mediated attractiveness and reproductive success, this suggests that human endurance capacity has been subject to sexual selection in our evolutionary past.<p /><p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="1744-9561",
doi="10.1098/rsbl.2013.0966",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2013.0966"
}