title: A relationship between attractiveness and performance in professional cyclists.
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 preselected 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.
authors: Institute of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, , Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057 Zürich, Switzerland.
authors: Erik
authors: E
authors: Postma
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D056352:Athletes; D001504:Beauty; D001642:Bicycling; D005145:Face; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012725:Sexual Behavior; D014796:Visual Perception; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: cycling; endurance performance; humans; mate preference; sexual selection