Norway wins back-to-back Winter Olympics with Beijing 2022 triumph

GSN’s ranking system, assigning points to the first eight positions in any event, means that we have a more comprehensive outlook on the nations’ performance, and explains why the GSN ranking can differ from traditional Olympics medal tables. It is also worth noting that, as has been GSN policy for the last three years, we do not assign any points to athletes that do not represent a nation, like those competing for the Russian Olympic Committee.

 

Norway’s victory has been emphatic enough for the GSN ranking to match the Beijing 2022 medal table in this country’s case, while the USA and especially Canada’s slew of top-8 placements propelled them above other countries that are otherwise better-placed in the medal tables, notably Germany, Sweden and China.

 

The Games’ home nation finished only 13^th in the GSN ranking, reflecting the fact that it recorded only 36 top-8 placements, while e.g. Germany had 63, Canada had 68 and the USA 82. Norway had 74, but hit consistently higher positions than anyone else, winning outright three sports (Biathlon, Cross Country Skiing and Nordic Combined, see table below) while the USA won two, and Germany also three.

 

The Beijing Games have brought a breath of fresh air in terms of sports winners: four countries have in fact won a sport for the first time out of the last four editions of the Winter Games (back to Vancouver 2010): well-done Switzerland for winning Alpine Skiing, Japan for Figure Skating, Finland for Ice Hockey and Slovenia for Ski Jumping, while Great Britain too deserves a mention for only its second-ever Winter Olympics sport win, in Curling. At the other end of the consistency spectrum, two countries recorded wins for the fourth consecutive edition in succession: hail the Netherlands for Speedskating and Germany for Luge.

 

 

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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.