Germany leads Global Cup 2023 ahead of Norway, France
The sporting year got off to a busy start in January and February 2023, with a host of tournaments in a wide variety of disciplines, and 48 different countries scoring GSN points.
After the first two months of the year, Germany is leading the Global Cup, the ranking of the world’s top sporting nations, ahead of Norway and France.
The main point-scoring events in January and February were the men’s Handball World Championship, won by Denmark (currently sixth in the Global Cup), ahead of France and Spain; the men’s Hockey World Cup, won by Germany ahead of Belgium and the Netherlands; and the Australian Open Championships in Tennis, in which the honours went to the USA (with four athletes in the singles’ top eight, three in the men’s tournament and one in the women’s), while Serbia came second and Greece third.
It is of course a busy period for Winter sports, and Germany cemented its current Global Cup leadership by winning both the Luge and Bobsleigh World Championships, while Norway took top spot in the Biathlon World Championships, preceding Sweden and France.
But other events in sports that have nothing to do with snow and ice were on the calendar: the World Cross Country Championship was won by Kenya, ahead of Ethiopia and Uganda, and Skateboarding staged its world championships, with Japan winning Street Skateboarding and finishing second behind the USA in Park Skateboarding, results that earned the Asian country the top overall spot in the competition, with Brazil second and the USA third.
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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.
