Red or blue? Do colours matter in sport ?

　　Taekwondo fighters have come to the Beijing Olympics after a scientific study claimed that referees subconsciously tend to favour the red-clad fighter against his or her opponent in blue when they score their points.

　　But the notion was generally greeted with skepticism as the four-day taekwondo competition got under way on Wednesday.

　　"No. I don't believe it," said Britain's 18-year-old Michael Harvey about the alleged colour bias.

　　"Obviously it didn't go the right way," Harvey laughed as he wore a red helmet and chest protector after narrowly losing 3-2 to world silver medallist Guillermo Perez of Mexico in his opening -58kg match.

　　The Korean-born martial art is among one-on-one Olympian bouts, along boxing and wrestling, in which one side wears red and the other blue.

　　Refereeing controversy has always marred the high-speed, high-danger sport since its debut at the 2000 Athens Games.

　　After coming from behind to tie 2-2 after three rounds, Harvey fell down after his kick appeared to have grazed the Mexican's pad in an extra round. Perez was awarded the winning point.

　　"I don't think the last fall was a point. The finish could have been mine. But overall, refereeing was good. It was honest."

　　"You can't really pick the colour yourself, right?" said Canada's world champion Karine Sergerie going for the women's -67kg gold on Friday.

　　"I think as athletes we have to overlook that and just focus on what we can control rather than what we can't control."

　　In the study, published in the August issue of the US journal Psychological Science, 42 experienced taekwondo referees were shown video clips of fighters in sparring.

　　It showed that competitors in red scored an average of 13 percent more points than their opponents in blue.

　　The experts, without their knowledge, were also shown the same clips with the colours digitally swapped. Fighters who started out in blue were awarded more points when they later appeared in red, and those who started out in red received fewer points when in blue.

　　The authors of the study said that this bias could stem from perceiving red as a more "dominant, aggressive" colour or that red could simply better attract the eye.

　　"This is not understandable," said Albert Gussbacher, the doctor for German taekwondo fighters here. "I think this scientific work has little substance."

　　Philippine coach Raul Samson had a different idea about the colours.

　　"I personally prefer to be on the blue side," he said. "Our experience shows that the more we wear blue the more we win."

　　He said most of judges, who push buttons on gadgets on both hands to register their scoring, are right handed so that their reflexes are more accurate on the right than the left.

　　"They hold the blue botton on the right and the red button on the left," he said. "It's funny but it's a factor."

　　But Tshomlee Go, the only Filipino who fought on the day, lost 1-0 in his first bout, wearing blue.