SAGITTARIUS

If Scorpio had a sting in its tail, Sagittarius had a bigger sting in its arrow.

Sagittarius is commonly known as the Archer and so I thought it was obvious that Sagittarius and Archery would be associated.

However, Sagittarius was actually slightly below the number of medals expected by chance. And no matter whether I tried Men only or Women only or Individual or Team competitions, Sagittarians came out as no better than average at Olympic archery competitions.

It was only when I went back to the origin of the word Sagittarius that I realised that my preconceptions were off target. Sagittarians, or Sagittarii as the Romans called them, were horse archers who had to fire quickly from horseback. This is in contrast to Olympic archery where the archer fires from a stationary base and can take his or her time to fire the arrow.

So, if Sagittarians are no better than average at Olympic archery, what Olympic sports are they good at? It seemed that I had to look at sports involving quick, accurate aiming at a target. In my opinion, Basketball fits this definition as well as Ice Hockey fits Aries. And the chart below bears this out.

All Basketball Competitions

Sagittarius is significant at about 1 in 70 and is significant at about 1 in 100 for Women’s Basketball.

Another sport where Sagittarian medallists excel is Biathlon. In Biathlon competitions, athletes are timed and are penalised if they do not fire their rifles accurately. So this significance at almost 1 in 1,000 is hardly surprising. The chart is given below.

All Biathlon Competitions 

On the same theme, Sagittarians are significantly better than expected in Tennis Doubles competitions. In contrast, no sign is significant in Tennis Singles. This may be because singles Tennis uses a variety of skills whereas in doubles Tennis, quick and accurate aiming of the ball is the most important attribute.

All Tennis Doubles Competitions

Another closely related skill that Sagittarians seem to possess is the ability to quickly and accurately pass a baton in a relay. Batons are used in all Relay Track Athletics and Relay Speed Skating competitions

The chart below shows the results for the 4 x 100m and 4 x 400m Track Athletic Relays combined with the Speed Skating 300m and 5000m Relays. Women are significantly better at Speed Skating Relays and men are significantly better at the Track Athletic Relays.

All Baton Passing Relay Events (Track Athletics & Speed Skating)

Finally, yet more evidence that Sagittarians have this quick aiming ability comes from my study of Ashes cricketers already mentioned in the Libra chapter. Taking only those batsmen who have scored at least one century in the Ashes series, there is a highly significantly greater (1 in 100) number of Sagittarians than other Zodiac signs.

Curiosity Corner

Sagittarius athletes born in the years 1863 to 1867 were awarded proportionately many more medals than their counterparts in other Zodiac signs. They gained 20 medals instead of the 7.7 expected by chance. The probability of this happening over this period is greater than 100,000 to 1.