Norway leads sporting world after March

Maren Lundby (Norway) flying to Ski Jumping World Cup victory

As the world of sports is shutting down to join the fight against Covid-19, we’re happy to bring you fresh GSN data for the first quarter of 2020.

Last year’s Per Capita Cup champion Norway is currently leading the Global Cup, the ranking of the world’s best sporting nations, after winning emphatically the March monthly ranking (the full monthly table is below). It is also top of the Per Capita Cup, an amazing feat, though one that Norway has already achieved before.
 
Unsurprisingly, Snow & Ice sports have dominated the last three months, accounting for 4,903 of the 6,619 GSN points awarded so far this year (74.0%). Even less surprisingly, 2018 and 2019 Snow & Ice sports winner Norway has made the most of this and surged to a commanding lead in both the Global Cup and the Per Capita Cup at the end of March.
 
Norway is 266 points ahead of Germany in the year-to-date Global Cup ranking, with almost double the points of perpetual Global Cup champion USA, currently in sixth place. In March, Norway triumphed in the women’s Ski Jumping World Cup, the men’s Nordic Combined World Cup, the women’s Cross-Country Skiing World Cup, and in the men’s overall Alpine Skiing World Cup, besides taking also the men’s slalom and giant slalom titles in the same competition. Of Norway’s 526 points scored in March, 8 came from the Track Cycling World Championships (won by the Netherlands ahead of Germany and Italy), the rest from Snow & Ice sports.
 
Like Norway, also Switzerland, Germany and Italy - making up the other top-five countries in the Global Cup together with Russia - have scored most of their points in Snow & Ice sports so far this year. The only exception in the top-10 is the Netherlands, which scored 43% of its points in Cycling, with 113 points in Track Cycling and 40 in the Cyclocross World Championships. In the latter, the Dutch clinched both the men’s and women’s individual titles, and placed four in the top five in the ladies’ race! In addition to this, the Netherlands scored 202 points in Speedskating, winning the Single Distance and finishing second in the Sprint World Championships.
 
There is a big question mark over the rest of the sporting year of course. We will continue to monitor what is happening and track all the GSN qualifying tournaments that will be taking place, hoping there will be many of them!
 
GLOBAL CUP 2020 – MARCH MONTHLY RANKING
Place
Country
Points
Points %
1
Norway
526
12.2%
2
Switzerland
382
8.8%
3
Germany
335
7.7%
4
Italy
290
6.7%
5
United States
282
6.5%
6
Austria
236
5.5%
7
Canada
230
5.3%
8
France
220
5.1%
9
Russia
189
4.4%
10
Japan
189
4.4%
11
Netherlands
162
3.7%
12
Australia
150
3.5%
13
Ethiopia
123
2.8%
14
Great Britain
122
2.8%
15
Sweden
103
2.4%
16
New Zealand
82
1.9%
17
China
80
1.8%
18
Slovakia
68
1.6%
19
India
48
1.1%
20
Czech Republic
44
1.0%
21
Belgium
40
0.9%
22
Finland
35
0.8%
23
South Africa
33
0.8%
24
Poland
32
0.7%
25
Israel
30
0.7%
26
Denmark
29
0.7%
27
Spain
29
0.7%
28
Kenya
27
0.6%
29
Slovenia
26
0.6%
30
West Indies
21
0.5%
31
Belarus
19
0.4%
32
Latvia
18
0.4%
33
South Korea
15
0.3%
34
Malaysia
13
0.3%
35
Portugal
12
0.3%
36
Croatia
12
0.3%
37
Brunei
12
0.3%
38
Mexico
12
0.3%
39
Hong Kong
11
0.3%
40
Kazakhstan
11
0.3%
41
Sri Lanka
9
0.2%
42
Pakistan
9
0.2%
43
Uzbekistan
5
0.1%
44
Lithuania
4
0.1%
45
South Korea
3
0.1%
46
Ireland
1
0.0%
Grand Total
4,329
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.