LONDON — The length of a girl’s ring finger could be an indicator of her future sporting potential, researchers at King’s College London said on Thursday. In the largest study of its kind, hand measurements of 607 female twins aged 25-79 from the UK were compared with the women’s lifetime sporting achievements. The findings, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, found that women with ring fingers longer than their index fingers had performed better at running and associated running sports such as soccer and tennis. In women the ring finger is commonly shorter or the same length as the index finger, while in men the ring finger is generally longer. The report said detection of sporting potential by examining the ratio between the index and ring fingers ‘could help identify talented individuals at a pre-competitive stage.’ Not sure why The reasons for the findings were unclear, said one of the report’s authors, Professor Tim Spector from the Twins Research Unit at King’s College, who said he was originally skeptical about the link to sporting ability. ‘Previous studies have suggested the change in finger length was due to changes in testosterone levels […]