Norway heads Snow & Ice Sports ranking

A. A. Kilde of Norway won the 2020 Alpine Skiing World Cup – pict. AP Photo/G. Auletta

The sporting year 2020 might end up being a year of winter sports and little else, as tournament after tournament is being cancelled

because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Current Global Cup and Per Capita Cup leader Norway is likely to benefit hugely from this, thanks to its Snow & Ice sports prowess.

GSN’s unique set of aggregate data on the winter season’s top sporting tournaments, the Snow & Ice sports ranking, is in fact currently led by Norway, followed by Russia and Germany (the full table is below). These three nations are the same, and in the same order, as in last year’s Snow & Ice sports’ final ranking. After years in which the Snow & Ice sports title was a private matter between the USA and Canada, Norway has decisively stepped forward as the world’s top winter sport nation, clinching the title in 2018 and 2019.
 
In 2020, in theory at least, three Snow & Ice sports should still be up for grabs, with the Bandy, Curling and Ice Hockey (men’s and women’s) World Championships still to be contested. At the time of publication however, the Bandy World Championships, due to be held in Irkutsk, Russia, in March, have been postponed to October. The Curling World Championships, due to be held on 28 March to 5 April in Glasgow, Scotland, have been cancelled, and won’t be staged this year. The Ice Hockey World Championships, due to be held in Zurich, Switzerland, in May, have also been cancelled. No decision on whether they will be held later in the year has been taken yet, but according to the sport’s international federation, IIHF, it’s looking highly unlikely.
 
In other words, the table below, bar the Bandy World Championships, which were won last year by Russia ahead of Sweden and Finland, might well be the definitive 2020 Snow & Ice sports table.
Norway is comfortably top with 15.8% of the points. It is leading the men’s ranking by a handsome margin, with 20.3% of the points, followed by France with 11.5%, and it is narrowly edging Italy in the women’s ranking (10.9% of the points vs 10.2%).
 
The list of individual sports whose 2020 calendar is already complete, and their winning nations, are below. Unsurprisingly, Norway took the most titles, three, as well as two more podium finishes (second in Alpine Skiing and third in Ski Jumping).
 
Alpine Skiing: Switzerland
Biathlon: Norway
Bobsleigh: Germany
Cross Country Skiing: Norway
Freestyle Skiing: Canada
Luge: Russia
Nordic Combined: Norway
Skeleton: Germany
Ski Jumping: Austria
Snowboarding: Japan
Speedskating: Netherlands.
 
SNOW & ICE SPORTS – ytd March 2020
Place
Country
Points
Points %
1
Norway
775
15.8%
2
Russia
448
9.1%
3
Germany
429
8.7%
4
Switzerland
399
8.1%
5
Italy
353
7.2%
6
France
352
7.2%
7
Austria
311
6.3%
8
Canada
308
6.3%
9
United States
286
5.8%
10
Japan
222
4.5%
11
Netherlands
202
4.1%
12
Sweden
153
3.1%
13
Czech Republic
98
2.0%
14
China
94
1.9%
15
Slovakia
77
1.6%
16
Australia
58
1.2%
17
Latvia
52
1.1%
18
Poland
44
0.9%
19
Slovenia
44
0.9%
20
Finland
35
0.7%
21
Great Britain
33
0.7%
22
Ukraine
30
0.6%
23
South Korea
20
0.4%
24
New Zealand
19
0.4%
25
Belarus
17
0.3%
26
Spain
14
0.3%
27
Croatia
12
0.2%
28
Kazakhstan
11
0.2%
29
Belgium
4
0.1%
30
South Korea
3
0.1%
Grand Total
4,903
100.0%
 
 
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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.