The Year’s Best - China top Target Sports nation in 2018

China’s Yang Haoran and Zhao Ruozhu won gold in the 10m air rifle mixed team event at the 2018 ISSF Shooting World Championships

Another exciting sporting year is drawing to a close, and it is time for us to reveal the final rankings in GSN’s unique sport groups,

starting with those for which the year-end table is already definitive.

GSN’s Target Sports group ranks the best sporting nations in Shooting and Archery. Two sports only, but both are Olympic sports, and Shooting features no less than 22 different events at its top tournaments.
 
Since 2013, South Korea and China have alternated as Target Sports winners, with Russia and the USA sneaking in the occasional second place.
 
This year, China narrowly beat 2017 winners South Korea. The latter won Archery (worth altogether 312 points), ahead of Turkey and the USA, while China topped Shooting (worth a heftier 2,964 points), ahead of South Korea and Russia. These two countries finished behind China in the overall sport group ranking, which is set out below.
 
Besides China and South Korea, Asian nations as a whole had a proficient year in Target Sports: their combined share of the points was 31.6%, way higher than their current share of total Global Cup points of 13.8%.
 
In per capita terms (i.e. in terms of the number of citizens needed to score one GSN point in Target Sports), the most pin-point sharp countries in the top-20 ranking were Croatia, Norway and Slovakia.
 
2018
TARGET SPORTS
Place
Country
Points
Points %
1
China
360
11.0%
2
South Korea
334
10.2%
3
Russia
240
7.3%
4
United States
218
6.7%
5
Germany
214
6.5%
6
France
160
4.9%
7
Italy
152
4.6%
8
India
138
4.2%
9
Ukraine
134
4.1%
10
Croatia
94
2.9%
11
Norway
84
2.6%
12
Switzerland
80
2.4%
13
Slovakia
74
2.3%
14
Finland
72
2.2%
15
Taiwan
72
2.2%
16
Serbia
66
2.0%
17
Sweden
64
2.0%
18
Turkey
58
1.8%
19
Great Britain
58
1.8%
20
Denmark
52
1.6%
21
Poland
52
1.6%
22
Spain
48
1.5%
23
Australia
42
1.3%
24
Austria
38
1.2%
25
Hungary
32
1.0%
26
Japan
28
0.9%
27
Brazil
26
0.8%
28
Greece
26
0.8%
29
Belarus
24
0.7%
30
Iran
24
0.7%
31
Colombia
20
0.6%
32
Slovenia
20
0.6%
33
Singapore
20
0.6%
34
Mexico
16
0.5%
35
Kuwait
16
0.5%
36
Netherlands
14
0.4%
37
Czech Republic
14
0.4%
38
Cuba
12
0.4%
39
Azerbaijan
12
0.4%
40
Cyprus
10
0.3%
41
Israel
10
0.3%
42
San Marino
8
0.2%
43
New Zealand
8
0.2%
44
North Korea
6
0.2%
45
Vietnam
4
0.1%
46
Bulgaria
4
0.1%
47
Chile
4
0.1%
48
Pakistan
4
0.1%
49
Qatar
4
0.1%
50
United Arab Emirates
2
0.1%
51
Portugal
2
0.1%
52
Georgia
2
0.1%
Grand Total
3,276
100.0%