USA, France, Ethiopia top sports nations in September

The USA won the Olympics ahead of France (read here the full report and a comparison between the GSN ranking and the official medals table), a result that was replicated in the month of September in the Global Cup, whose final table is below. As well as lean points-wise, it was also a highly contested month, with nine countries finishing within less than a hundred points of each other.

 

Cycling, with the Road Cycling and Mountain Bike World Championships, was a big contributor to the USA’s September win, as was Tennis, the Stars & Stripes topping the ranking in the US Open ahead of Italy.

 

Australia won the Road Cycling World Championships ahead of Belgium and Italy, and France won the MTB World Championships ahead of Great Britain and the USA.

 

Ethiopia was third in the month by dominating the Berlin Marathon, finishing first and third in the men’s race and taking all three podium places in the women’s, while Japan, fourth in the monthly table, won the Street Skateboarding World Championship and finished second in the twin event in Park Skateboarding, swapping places with Brazil in both.

 

In the year-to-date Global Cup, the September results cemented the positions of the top 10 nations, which remained unchanged. Behind them, Brazil and Sweden gained one position each at the expense of South Korea and Norway, while Belgium pipped Serbia into 20^th place overall.

 

As of the end of September, there is instead a new leader in the Per Capita Cup, the ranking of the world’s sportiest nations (each country’s population is divided by the GSN points won, giving a measure of how many inhabitants are needed to score one GSN point: the fewer they are, the sportier the country): Slovenia, Per Capita champion in 2021, overtook serial winner and current champion Norway thanks to its Cycling prowess, winning both the Vuelta and the Road Cycling World Championship. Slovenia’s lead is extremely thin however, as there are only 217 inhabitants between them, so the race will be close to the end of the year.

 

 

 

 

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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