USA top sporting nation in April, ahead of Kenya, Ethiopia
April was an unusually lean month in terms of major sporting tournaments this year, with Golf, Ice Hockey and Marathon awarding the most GSN points.
The USA topped the monthly ranking of the Global Cup, with two African nations, Kenya and Ethiopia, making a rare appearance among the world’s best sporting nations, in second and third place in the monthly table (please see below for the full results).
The USA racked up over half its monthly points in Golf, and another third by winning the women’s Ice Hockey World Championship ahead of Canada and the Czech Republic. Results that enabled the USA to overtake Germany in second place in the year-to-date Global Cup ranking, which is still led by the undisputed ruler of Winter Sports, Norway.
Kenya and Ethiopia instead starred in the two major Marathon events ran in April, the Boston and London Marathons. Kenya led an all-African podium in Boston, finishing comfortably ahead of Ethiopia and Tanzania, and gave a repeat performance in London, narrowly beating Ethiopia and the Netherlands.
To put Kenya and Ethiopia’s April performance in perspective, in 2022 they were the two top African nations in the annual Global Cup ranking. Kenya finished 19th and Ethiopia 25th, with the other countries making up Africa’s top 10 in the following order (overall Global Cup ranking in parenthesis): Morocco (28th), Egypt (32nd), South Africa (33rd), Senegal (48th), Tunisia (57th), Cameroon (60th), Nigeria (63rd), and Burkina Faso (68th). Behind them, another nine African countries scored GSN points last year.
In 2022, Kenya scored its points in Marathon (78.5% of them) and Athletics (21.5%), with Ethiopia recording very similar figures. Morocco owed its best-ever Global Cup result last year to Football, having reached the last four in the men’s Football World Cup and also scoring points in Taekwondo, Athletics and Marathon, while Egypt enjoyed more of an all-round performance, scoring points in 10 different sports, with Football and Squash the main point earners.
Notably, Egypt won outright two sports last year, Squash and Modern Pentathlon, while Kenya won the annual Marathon ranking.
GLOBAL CUP 2023 – APRIL MONTHLY RANKING
Place
|
Country
|
Points
|
Points %
|
1
|
United States
|
313
|
22.3%
|
2
|
Kenya
|
204
|
14.5%
|
3
|
Ethiopia
|
132
|
9.4%
|
4
|
Canada
|
93
|
6.6%
|
5
|
Sweden
|
84
|
5.9%
|
6
|
Finland
|
80
|
5.7%
|
7
|
Switzerland
|
64
|
4.6%
|
8
|
Czech Republic
|
60
|
4.3%
|
9
|
Norway
|
46
|
3.2%
|
10
|
Great Britain
|
42
|
3.0%
|
11
|
Spain
|
40
|
2.8%
|
12
|
Netherlands
|
35
|
2.5%
|
13
|
Japan
|
30
|
2.1%
|
14
|
Kazakhstan
|
25
|
1.8%
|
15
|
Tanzania
|
24
|
1.7%
|
16
|
Germany
|
20
|
1.4%
|
17
|
Israel
|
18
|
1.3%
|
18
|
France
|
16
|
1.1%
|
19
|
Hungary
|
15
|
1.1%
|
20
|
South Korea
|
12
|
0.9%
|
21
|
Morocco
|
12
|
0.9%
|
22
|
Italy
|
11
|
0.8%
|
23
|
Eritrea
|
9
|
0.6%
|
24
|
Australia
|
7
|
0.5%
|
25
|
Thailand
|
6
|
0.4%
|
26
|
Ireland
|
5
|
0.3%
|
27
|
Estonia
|
4
|
0.2%
|
Grand Total
|
1,405
|
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.