Germany tops depleted Global Cup table after February
The results for the first two months of the 2021 sporting year are in and, while more tournaments have taken place than in January and February last year,
the pandemic is still affecting the global sporting calendar.
As of the end of February, 3,210 GNS points have been awarded this year, up from 2,290 at the end of February 2020, but still way below the 4,952 points awarded in January-February 2019.
Only 35 countries have scored points so far this year, and Germany leads the year-to-date Global Cup, the ranking of the best sporting nations, by the tiniest of margins: only 2 points over last year’s surprise Global Cup runner-up and Per Capita Cup champion Norway.
Snow & Ice Sports accounted for 63.5% of all points awarded in January and February, and Germany, Norway and France have generated the lion’s share of their results in this category. In February, Germany won the Bobsleigh World Championships on home soil, ahead of the USA and Austria, and the Skeleton World Championship too. It also finished a creditable fifth in the Biathlon World Championship, which was dominated by Norway (first in both the women’s and men’s tournament rankings) ahead of France and Sweden.
Outside of Snow & Ice Sports, 702 points were awarded at the men’s Handball World Championships in January, the first and hopefully not the last of the year’s Ball Team Sport tournaments. It was won by Denmark ahead of Sweden and Spain, earning Sweden useful points to hoist them in third place in the Global Cup year-to-date ranking.
We look forward to more tournaments as the year progresses, hoping that the international sporting calendar will soon return to its busy former self, the Tokyo Summer Olympics included!
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Greatest Sporting Nation is a ranking of countries based on their performance in top-level international tournaments in sports in which there is genuine global competition. Countries (national teams and/or individual athletes) score Qualifying Points by finishing in the top eight places in Qualifying Events.
These Qualifying Points are then weighted to produce GSN Points, based on a formula that takes into account individual vs team sports, the sport’s participation (number of countries) and the frequency (annual/biennial/quadrennial) of the tournaments.
The Country scoring the most Points in a calendar year wins the Global Cup for that year. The country that scores the most points relative to its population wins the Per Capita Cup. For a more detailed explanation, please refer to the ‘How It Works’ section on the site.
