27 April 2012 - USA best nation in archery since 2008

USA best nation in archery since 2008 Lausanne – 27 April 2012   Who is the best country in archery overall? And in what regards? These are difficult questions that World Archery wanted to answer—at least on the competitive field. Taking into account all the results in major archery events since 2008, the USA top this new nation ranking ahead of Korea. Italy is at third place followed closely by India.   To some experts the country that wins the most Olympic medals should be considered as the best archery nation in the world. Fair enough. The race for the qualifications, let alone the medals, for the London 2012 Olympic Games is in everyone’s mind at the moment. These who will win the coveted gold, the coveted Olympic title; these who will be on the podium during the Games; these who will reach their ultimate goals in London after four years of exhausting training definitely deserve to be raised at the pinnacle.   To some others, the country that organises more events, who has the strongest education system for the young archers, the highest number of licensees also deserves to be recognised as a top archery nation in the world. True. How could we practically measure all this? Difficult, but in essence, these development effort should turn into good ranking at international competitions.   World Archery took up the challenge to measure something really concrete. We measured the results at all the major events in outdoor archery during the current Olympic cycle. The results across all categories: recurve and compound, men and women, individuals, teams and mixed teams. The points were given over five types of events:   1.    World Outdoor Target Championships and Olympic Games 2.    World Cup events 3.    Other events A (average ranking factor for the individual World Ranking higher than 2.00) 4.    Other events B (average ranking factor between 1.00 and 2.00) 5.    Other events C (average ranking factor lower than 1.00)   Tournaments considered as Other Events include Continental Championships, multisport Games as well as other world class competitions.   For instance, an individual gold medal at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games gives 20 points, and a team one, 25 points. The same at a World Cup stage brings respectively 19 and 23 points. An individual 33rd place at a World Cup gives 1 point. Last example, an individual 1st place at the "Other events C" gives 9 points and a 9th place, 1 point.   The World Archery statistician has taken into account 30 events, starting with the Beijing Games and including the last World Cup Stage in Shanghai early April. He has taken into account the performance of every athlete over four years! And the results are (!):   World Archery Nation Ranking Rank Country Points   Rank Country Points 1 USA 2978   11 UKR 910 2 KOR 2316   12 IRI 904 3 ITA 1895   13 AUS 883 4 IND 1854   14 JPN 742 5 RUS 1667   15 TPE 715 6 FRA 1608   16 GER 679 7 MEX 1536   17 MAS 664 8 GBR 1351   18 DEN 589 9 CHN 1259   19 NED 577 10 CAN 914   20 POL 576   Ø Please click here to see the complete ranking. Ø Please click here to see the complete ranking with details. Ø Please click here to see the complete point system.     It is an impressive total of 101 countries that have scored at least 1 point to appear in this ranking. This will be updated regularly after upcoming major events.   Special thanks to the World Archery statistician Sergio FONT.   World Archery Communication