The team, at King's Twin Research Unit, examined hand X-ray images of 607 female twins aged 25-79 from the UK and the results of the study appear online in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
Researchers measured the lengths of the second and fourth fingers of each hand and the volunteers also were asked to rank their highest level of achievement in a list of 12 sports on a questionnaire.
The study indicated that women with longer fourth fingers were much more likely to be among the top achievers in all the sports on the list and in particular, they were likely to do well at running and sports such as football and tennis.
