Profiling the world’s top sporting nations: Russia, France

The seventh article in the series takes us to the ranking’s podium, focusing on two of the world’s top three sporting nations in the last quadrennium: Russia and France. In previous articles, we analysed the performance of Serbia, Poland, Kenya, Switzerland, Sweden, South Korea, Brazil, Norway, Spain, the Netherlands, Australia, Canada, Italy, Japan, Germany, China and Great Britain.

We took an in-depth look at each country, highlighting which sports it excels at and how versatile it is in terms of disciplines.

 

The table below shows the aggregate top-20 Global Cup ranking for the 2016-19 quadrennial period (or quad for short), the latest quad for which we have full four-year data.

Russia lost its long-held second place in the table in the course of the quad, slipping into third place. It was a major and relatively surprising loss of status: between 2008 - when GSN records began - and 2015, Russia was consistently the number two world sporting power behind the USA. Never too close to be fair, as the narrowest gap was 1,066 points in 2009, but regular as clockwork.

 

Then came three years of below-par results (fifth in 2016, third in 2017 and 2018), before Russia righted its course and was again runner-up in 2019.

The scourge of state-sponsored doping and the ensuing sanctions against Russian sport federations and athletes were a major factor in the decline during the quad’s first three years, though the marked improvements of some of the other top sporting countries in the same period, France above all, also played a significant part.

 

Russia never lost its range in terms of sports, scoring points consistently in 45-plus disciplines during the quad. What it lost was the winning edge: after topping the annual ranking in seven sports in 2015, during the 2016-19 quad Russia’s slump is reflected by the fact it won five sports in 2016, four in 2017 and a mere three in 2018, before rising again to a (record) nine in 2019. The latter was an eclectic mix including Artistic and Rhythmic Gymnastics, Fencing, both Wrestling disciplines and Figure Skating, among others.

 

Points-wise, Volleyball and Swimming have been the most productive sports for Russia in the quad, each twice being the country’s top point provider: Volleyball in 2016 and 2018, and Swimming in 2017 and 2019. Volleyball was in fact one of the main drivers of the country’s recovery last year, when Russia was third in the sport’s annual ranking, after finishing fourth in 2018 and eighth in 2017. Artistic Gymnastics is another major sport for Russia, especially so in the last two years, when it was twice the country’s second-best sport points-wise. Unsurprisingly, Russia’s record in the sport’s annual ranking during the quad was, from 2016, second-first-second-first.

 

Russia is currently third in the Global Cup, and, as noted above, it finished second in the Global Cup in 2019.

 

France was the remarkable sporting success story of the 2016-19 quad, gaining three positions over the previous quad (the joint-best performance in the top-20, with the Netherlands) to finish in second place, edging Russia by the thinnest of margins: 8 points, or less than 0.01%!

It was a success story built on two key elements: versatility, and France’s stellar performance in Ball Team sports. In the course of the quad, France consistently scored points in 40-plus sports every year, the most in 2019 with 47. In the same year, it was a podium finisher in 10 sports, including victories in MTB and Open Water Swimming.

 

Ball Team sports are among GSN’s highest-scoring disciplines, owing to their global popularity. France has built its recent sporting success on Handball (its second-best sport in 2016 and the first in 2017), Football and Volleyball (respectively the first and second-best sports in 2018) and Basketball, France’s top point scorer in 2019.

 

This has come courtesy of first-rate results in the sports’ annual rankings: France was the top nation in Football in 2018, when its men’s team won the FIFA World Cup, the third in Basketball in 2019, the second in Volleyball in 2017 and the undisputed leader in Handball in 2016 and 2017.

 

The Ball Team sports group is GSN’s richest sport aggregate in point terms, accounting for 18.8% of all points scored in the last quad, and France never finished below fourth in the annual group ranking, winning outright in 2018.

France isn’t solely about Ball Team sports however: a quick glance at its best sports in 2019 shows Alpine Skiing and Judo among the top three, and such diverse disciplines as Rugby Union, Freestyle Skiing, Fencing and Track Cycling among the top 10. Judo is in fact worth a special mention: while the sport’s annual ranking has been won by Japan every year since GSN records began, in the last quad France was three times second and once third (2017) in the table, never bagging less than 100 points per year thanks to this discipline.

 

France finished fifth in the Global Cup in 2019, and it currently sits in seventh place in the 2020 Global Cup.

 

* position change vs previous quad

 

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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.