At the end of the 19th century , sports competitions and outdoor activities experienced an unusual boom among the population, especially in the middle and upper classes. In the UK , one of the places where this practice was more successful, the beautiful sport was athletics . Those competitive sports in the form of endurance or speed racing became the great pastime of the time. In the absence of an international body to regulate the development of these tests, the fans decided to specify their own rules .
In the case of racing, British athletes chose to follow their country’s traffic regulations , which required driving in the left lane. They agreed that the first street would be the one on the left in the direction of travel, this being the opposite of the clockwise movement . When the International Association of Athletics Federations ( IAAF ) was founded in 1912 , the rule that athletes ran counterclockwise was upheld. Currently, the IAAF regulations for the holding and control of athletics events establishes the following in article 163: “ The direction of the race will be carried out with the curb of the inner street on the left (…) ”. In that same document, article 213.3 stipulates that “ the direction of the race will be carried out with the curb or internal line to the left (…) ”.
From the historical perspective, the races on foot and horse of old used to be done in a straight line, having to go around a pole at the end of the track and return. The popular belief is that, during a horse race, the writer Homer warned his son to turn left as he rounded the post to win the race. Some studies seem to indicate that in chariot races , such as those held at the Circus Maximus, the route was carried out in an anticlockwise direction since the strongest horses were tied on the left side of the cart, to facilitate the turn.
This athletic standard could apply to many other areas of everyday life. Numerous studies seem to indicate that, in most cases, the human being tends to move in an anti-clockwise direction , making turns to the left. Professor Watanabe Hitoshi spent many years of study analyzing this hidden trend, even pointing out that even in situations where a crowd walks randomly, 75% of them follow a counterclockwise direction. Or that when people are persecuted, 70% always flee in the opposite direction to the needles.
These behaviors still do not have a clear explanation, although it is usually related to a natural instinct or some type of anthropological explanation . The main reasons given to explain this behavior are that most people are right-handed, so their right leg is more developed than the left; or that the human being always tends to move with his most protected left side, since that is where the heart is. In nature, the so-called ‘left turn’ effect can be seen in situations such as the flight of birds or the displacement of planets.
