Women a bit tougher than men

 From today's NYTimes

The act of diving, as the fake falls are called, is crafty or cynical, artful gamesmanship or outright cheating, depending on one’s view. Although the use of the ruse was clearly evident on Sunday during the United States’ riveting World Cup quarterfinal victory over Brazil, the relative lack of this tactic in women’s soccer was captured in a study conducted at Wake Forest University. Researchers determined that women were much less likely than men to dive and fake injuries, an act also known as simulation.
The study reviewed video of 47 matches from the 2003 and 2007 Women’s World Cups and compared injury rates with men’s matches in regional tournaments. Apparent injuries were divided into two categories. They were considered “definite” if a player was replaced within five minutes or was visibly bleeding. Otherwise, the injuries were considered “questionable.”
Researchers found that an average of 11.26 apparent injuries occurred in men’s matches, compared with 5.74 in women’s matches. Those considered “definite” involved 13.7 percent of injuries for women and 7.2 percent for men.
“We can say that men writhe on the ground looking like they’re injured more than women, almost twice as often,” said Dr. Daryl Rosenbaum, the lead author of the study, which was published in the July issue of the journal Research in Sports Medicine. “And when players are apparently injured, the percentage when it was authentic by our criteria was twice as high with women. You could trust more that they were injured.”