Olympic Ranking Index

A Look into Canada’s Rank in Olympic Sports
2015-2018

Insight Unit
Sport Canada

November 2019

On this page

• List of abbreviations
• About
  • Summary
  • Medal Performance Indicators
  • Systemic Success and Depth of Field
• 2015-2018 Event Count Summary
• Results
  • Points
  • Combined Olympic Ranking Index
  • Summer Olympic Ranking Index
  • Winter Olympic Ranking Index
  • The Four
• Sport Ranking
  • Summer
  • Winter
• Methodology
  • Parameters
  • Limitations

Alternate format

Olympic Ranking Index [PDF version - 772 KB]

List of abbreviations

AUS

Australia

AUT

Austria

CAN

Canada

CHN

China

CZE

Czech Republic

ETH

Ethiopia

FIN

Finland

FRA

France

GBR

Great Britain

GER

Germany

HUN

Hungary

ITA

Italy

JAM

Jamaica

JPN

Japan

KEN

Kenya

KOR

Korea

NED

Netherlands

NOR

Norway

NZL

New Zealand

POL

Poland

RUS

Russia

SLO

Slovenia

SUI

Switzerland

SWE

Sweden

USA

United States of America

About

The Olympic Ranking Index (the Index) is a product of Sport Canada, based on data collected and compiled through the Sport Tracking, Assessment, and Technical Statistics (STATS) database.

The Index offers a system to determine Canada’s annual ranking on the basis of its aggregate results across all senior world championships and Olympic Games that occurred over a four-year period. The Index provides a fair, consistent and objective foundation to track, compare and evaluate a nation’s overall performance over time.

A number of indicators are used: gold medal count, medal count, medal points, top 5 count, top 5 points^{Footnote 1}, top 8 count, and top 8 points^{Footnote 1}. These indicators help produce three indices:

1. Combined Olympic Ranking Index
2. Summer Olympic Ranking Index
3. Winter Olympic Ranking Index

This report is divided into three sections:

1. Results
2. Sport Ranking
3. Methodology

A Paralympic version of this index, called Paralympic Maturity Index, has been developed to provide a system for tracking and evaluating nations’ performances on the basis of their aggregate results across all Paralympic senior world championships and Paralympic Games. This is in a separate document.

Summary of Canada’s Olympic Ranking 2015-2018

Indicators	Combined Rank	Summer Rank	Winter Rank
Gold medal count	11	17	5
Medal count	9	12	3
Medal points	9	15	3
Top 5 count	8	11	4
Top 5 points	9	13	4
Top 8 count	7	11	3
Top 8 points	8	11	3

Summary

Combined Olympic Ranking Index

Combines both winter and summer Olympic events.

Summer Olympic Ranking Index

Track results across all summer Olympic events.

Winter Olympic Ranking Index

Track results across all winter Olympic events.

Medal Performance Indicators

• The medal points provide the most accurate method of evaluating nations’ medal performances.
• They combine both volume of performance, number of medals won, and level of performance.
• Gold Medal Count
• Medal Count
• Medal Points

(Points awarded to each medal colour: gold = 5pts, silver = 3pts, bronze = 1pt)

Systemic Success and Depth of Field

When used in combination with medal indicators such as medal percentage, they assess systematic success and depth of a nation’s teams.

• Top 5 Count
• Top 5 Points
  (Points awarded to each position: 1st = 7pts, 2nd = 5pts, 3rd = 3pts, 4th = 2pts, 5th = 1pt.)
• Top 8 Count
• Top 8 Points
  (Points awarded to each position: 1st = 10pts, 2nd = 8pts, 3rd = 6pts, 4th = 5pts, 5th = 4pts, 6th = 3pts, 7th = 2pts, 8th = 1pt.)

2015-2018 Event Count Summary

Season	Sport	2015	2016	2017	2018	2015-2018
Summer	Archery	5	4	5	-	14
	Athletics	47	47	47	13	154
	Badminton	5	5	5	5	20
	Baseball	1	-	1	-	2
	Basketball	-	4	2	3	9
	Boxing	10	13	10	5	38
	Canoeing	16	16	16	16	64
	Cycling	18	18	19	22	77
	Diving	8	8	8	-	24
	Equestrian	-	6	-	6	12
	Fencing	10	11	12	12	45
	Field Hockey	-	2	-	1	3
	Golf	-	2	-	-	2
	Gymnastics	18	18	14	18	68
	Judo	14	14	15	15	58
	Karate	-	12	-	10	22
	Modern Pentathlon	2	2	2	2	8
	Rowing	14	14	14	14	56
	Rugby	-	2	-	2	4
	Sailing	10	10	10	10	40
	Shooting	5	15	5	15	40
	Skateboarding	1	2	2	1	6
	Soccer	1	2	1	-	4
	Softball	1	1	1	1	4
	Sport Climbing	-	2	-	2	4
	Sport Parachuting	-	5	-	-	5
	Surfing	2	2	2	2	8
	Swimming	37	34	37	-	108
	Synchro Swim	2	2	2	-	6
	Table Tennis	3	4	3	2	12
	Taekwondo	8	8	8	-	24
	Team Handball	2	2	2	-	6
	Tennis	2	5	2	-	9
	Triathlon	3	3	3	3	12
	Volleyball	2	4	2	2	10
	Water Polo	2	2	2	-	6
	Weightlifting	15	15	16	14	60
	Wrestling	18	18	25	18	79
Winter	Alpine Skiing	13	-	11	13	37
	Biathlon	11	11	11	11	44
	Bobsleigh and Luge	9	9	9	9	36
	Cross Country Ski	12	-	12	12	36
	Curling	3	3	3	3	12
	Figure Skating	5	4	5	5	19
	Freestyle Ski	8	-	8	8	24
	Hockey	2	2	2	2	8
	Nordic Combined	3	-	2	3	8
	Ski Cross	-	-	2	-	2
	Ski Jumping	4	-	4	4	12
	Snowboarding	10	-	10	10	30
	Speed Skating	22	22	22	22	88
Total	-	384	385	394	316	1,479

Results

Points^{Footnote 2}

Figure 1: Canada’s Combined Points – text version

Year	Medal points	Top 5 points	Top 8 points
2015	109	247	583.5
2016	106	233	530
2017	107	239	611
2018	127	248	535

Figure 2: Canada’s Summer Points – text version

Year	Medal points	Top 5 points	Top 8 points
2015	45	109	263
2016	50	130	316
2017	30	84	259
2018	38	80	183

Figure 3: Canada’s Winter Points – text version

Year	Medal points	Top 5 points	Top 8 points
2015	64	138	321
2016	56	103	214
2017	77	155	353
2018	89	168	352

Medal Points

• Canada’s combined medal points are increasing.
• Canada’s summer medal points slightly increased between 2017 and 2018; going from 30 to 38 points, after dropping from 2016 to 2017^{Footnote 3}.
• Canada’s winter medal points increased by 12 points since 2017.

Top 5 Points

• Canada’s combined top 5 points are increasing.
• Canada’s summer top 5 points decreased by 4 points since 2017. This could be a result of there being 79 less medal events in summer 2018 than summer 2017.
• For the winter top 5 points, a slight decrease occurred in 2016; Canada obtained 103 top 5 points. Its top 5 points have since then increased; Canada obtained 155 points in 2017 and 168 points in 2018.

Top 8 Points

• Canada’s combined top 8 points decreased from 2017 to 2018.
• Canada obtained most of its summer top 8 points in 2016. This is primarily due to its performance during the Rio 2016 Olympics^{Footnote 4}.
• Canada closely maintains its top 8 points in winter sports; going from 353 in 2017 to 352 in 2018

Combined Olympic Ranking Index

Figure 4: Combined top 8 points, 2015-2018 – text version

Nation	Top 8 points
USA	5,341
CHN	3,491
RUS	3,415
GER	3,412
FRA	2,748
JPN	2,588
GBR	2,516
CAN	2,260

Figure 5: Combined top 5 points, 2015-2018 – text version

Nation	Top 5 points
USA	2,729
CHN	1,813
RUS	1,707
GER	1,647
JPN	1,317
FRA	1,314
GBR	1,193
NED	1,031
CAN	967

Figure 6: Ten-year (2009-2018) trend of top 8 nations based on combined medal points – text version

Nation	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018
USA	1,253	1,251	1,203	1,227	1,216	1,295	1,292	1,338	1,408	1,541
RUS	974	963	943	951	1,024	1,061	1,074	1,043	950	871
CHN	1,186	1,171	1,230	1,171	1,106	1,104	1,072	981	946	964
GER	907	917	883	837	814	834	797	811	812	842
FRA	455	509	492	513	529	668	686	693	715	678
JPN	283	361	397	418	435	466	495	509	612	698
GBR	461	533	582	643	647	616	611	617	607	585
NED	322	302	298	314	359	420	455	473	495	533
CAN	426	455	485	470	485	503	459	461	448	449

• Canada ranked in 11th position for gold medal count (42 gold medals) in the 2015-2018 cycle.
• Canada ranked in 9th position for total number of medals (167) and medal points (449). This was a slight improvement for Canada. It placed 9th in the previous cycle (2014-2017) with 162 medals and 448 medal points.
• Canada maintained 7th position for total number of top 8 with a total of 499 top 8 finishes in 2018.
• Canada ranked in 8th position for top 8 points with a total of 2,260 points. Canada maintained its rank from the previous cycle, but slightly improved its top 8 point total from 2,188 in 2014-2017.
• Canada ranked in 8th position behind Japan with 299 top 5 finishes. Canada obtained a total of 967 points for top 5 finishes, putting Canada at 9th position behind the Netherlands.
• The United States, China, Russia, Germany, and France maintained their positions in the top 5 for medal count.
• The United States maintained the lead for combined medal points, top 8 and top 5 points; creating a wider gap with the remaining nations.
• China sat at the 2nd position with 964 medal points; an increase of 18 points. Russia dropped to 3rd position with 871.

Summer Olympic Ranking Index

Figure 7: Ten-year (2009-2018) trend of top 8 nations based on summer medal points – text version

Nation	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018
USA	1,003	977	908	924	910	1,014	996	1,048	1,121	1,167
CHN	1,053	1,030	1,086	1,032	981	984	942	850	817	840
RUS	802	820	794	817	864	844	825	778	694	706
GBR	432	502	549	615	620	584	568	574	566	545
JPN	231	303	350	371	391	414	432	442	511	577
FRA	363	417	402	401	381	500	498	486	506	465
GER	496	507	483	484	479	531	499	505	461	447
AUS	409	405	395	357	360	379	374	367	374	381
CAN	132	137	146	130	137	166	162	175	166	163

Figure 8: Summer top 8 points, 2015-2018 – text version

Nation	Top 8 points
USA	4,083
CHN	2,990
RUS	2,638
GBR	2,301
JPN	2,032
GER	1,981
FRA	1,951
AUS	1,599

Figure 9: Summer top 5 points, 2015-2018 – text version

Nation	Top 5 points
USA	2,145
CHN	1,567
RUS	1,356
GBR	1,100
JPN	1,073
GER	922
FRA	916
AUS	759

• Canada ranked in 17th position for number of gold medals obtained during the cycle (16).
• Canada ranked in 12th position for total number of medals with a total of 69 medals. Canada held 13th position with 68 total medals in 2014-2017.
• Canada maintained the 15th position for medal points with a total of 163 points in 2018. Canada previously obtained a total of 166 medal points in 2017.
• Canada tied South Korea in 11th position behind the Netherlands with a count of 143 top 5 finishes.
• Canada obtained a total of 403 points for top 5 finishes. This put Canada in 13th position behind New Zealand.
• Canada ranked in 11th position for total number of top 8 finishes with a total of 249 during the 2015-2018 cycle. Canada previously held 10th position with a total of 241 top 8 finishes.
• Canada ranked in 11th position for top 8 points with a total of 1,021 points.

Winter Olympic Ranking Index

Figure 10: Winter top 8 points, 2015-2018 – text version

Nation	Top 8 points
GER	1,432
USA	1,259
CAN	1,239
NOR	1,220
FRA	798
NED	783
RUS	778
AUT	745

Figure 11: Winter top 5 points, 2015-2018 – text version

Nation	Top 5 points
GER	725
NOR	616
USA	584
CAN	564
NED	424
FRA	398
RUS	351
AUT	340

Figure 12: Ten-year (2009-2018) trend of top 8 nations based on winter medal points – text version

Nation	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018
GER	411	410	400	353	335	303	298	306	351	395
CAN	294	318	339	340	348	337	297	286	282	286
USA	250	274	295	303	306	281	296	290	287	284
NOR	235	267	291	284	317	322	311	319	277	320
RUS	172	143	149	134	160	217	249	265	256	165
NED	125	126	132	146	173	218	227	233	242	236
FRA	92	91	90	112	148	168	188	207	209	213
AUT	169	131	190	195	173	187	169	170	183	174

• Canada ranked in 5th position with a total of 26 gold medals. Canada held 3rd position for medal count with a total of 98 medals.
• Canada ranked in 3rd position for medal points with a total of 286 points.
• Canada ranked in 4th position behind Norway with 156 top 5 finishes.
• Canada obtained a total of 564 points for top 5 finishes. This put Canada in the 4th position behind the United States.
• Canada ranked in 3rd position for total number of top 8 finishes with a total of 250. Canada previously held 3rd position with a total of 239 top 8 finishes. Canada also ranked in 3rd position for top 8 points with a total of 1,239 points.

The Four

Australia, Great Britain, and Norway are often identified as good candidates for performance comparison purposes with Canada. Australia and Great Britain focus their investments on performance efforts almost exclusively on summer sports. Norway mostly focuses its efforts on winter sports. Canada splits its investments in performance efforts among both.

The combined summer and winter ranking therefore provides an interesting comparative perspective by illustrating the overall performance outcome of each nation’s investment in Olympic sport.

Figure 13: Ten-year trend of Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and Norway based on combined medal points – text version

Nation	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018
GBR	461	533	582	643	647	616	611	617	607	585
CAN	426	455	485	470	485	503	459	461	448	449
AUS	423	426	433	395	404	417	405	398	410	417
NOR	293	324	357	333	363	369	347	345	311	356

• Canada’s positioning in relation to the other 3 nations remains consistent over the years.
• Great Britain maintains a significant lead over the other 3 nations for another consecutive year although it experienced a 22 point drop in medal points in 2018.
• With 585 medal points obtained during the 2015-2018 cycle, Great Britain maintains an average difference of 178 points with the other nations.
• Australia got closer to Canada with its 417 points achieved this cycle. Australia previously obtained 410 medal points compared to 448 medal points obtained by Canada in 2014-2017.

Sport Ranking^{Footnote 5}

This is a ranking of nations by sport over the 2015-2018 cycle. The sports displayed have the highest proportion of events over the cycle.

Summer

Athletics

Nation	Medal points	Top 5	Top 5 points	Top 8	Top 8 points
USA	1	1	1	1	1
KEN	2	2	2	2	2
JAM	3	3	3	3	3
CHN	4	4	4	5	5
GBR	4	5	5	3	4
ETH	6	7	7	7	7
POL	7	8	8	6	8
GER	8	6	6	3	6
CAN	11	10	11	10	10

Cycling

Nation	Medal points	Top 5	Top 5 points	Top 8	Top 8 points
GBR	2	3	2	4	3
NED	1	1	1	1	1
AUS	3	2	3	2	2
FRA	5	6	5	3	4
GER	6	4	6	5	6
USA	4	5	4	6	5
NZL	7	7	7	7	7
SUI	8	11	10	8	10
CAN	22	10	15	12	12

Swimming

Nation	Medal points	Top 5	Top 5 points	Top 8	Top 8 points
USA	1	1	1	1	1
AUS	2	2	2	2	2
HUN	4	7	5	7	6
CHN	3	4	3	3	3
GBR	5	3	4	4	4
JPN	6	5	6	5	5
ITA	7	9	8	9	9
RUS	8	6	7	6	7
CAN	9	8	9	8	8

Winter

Alpine Skiing

Nation	Medal points	Top 5	Top 5 points	Top 8	Top 8 points
AUT	1	1	1	1	1
SUI	2	2	2	2	2
USA	3	4	4	7	5
NOR	4	3	3	4	4
FRA	5	5	5	3	3
CAN	6	9	6	9	7
SWE	6	6	7	6	6
SLO	8	10	8	10	5

Cross Country Ski

Nation	Medal points	Top 5	Top 5 points	Top 8	Top 8 points
NOR	1	1	1	1	1
SWE	2	2	2	2	2
RUS	3	4	3	5	4
FIN	4	3	4	3	3
USA	5	5	5	4	5
ITA	6	7	6	10	9
CAN	7	7	7	8	8
SUI	8	7	7	6	6

Speed Skating

Nation	Medal points	Top 5	Top 5 points	Top 8	Top 8 points
NED	1	1	1	1	1
KOR	2	2	2	3	2
CAN	3	3	3	2	3
CHN	4	4	4	4	4
USA	5	5	5	7	6
JPN	6	7	7	5	7
RUS	7	6	6	6	5
CZE	8	10	8	11	10

Methodology

The Olympic Ranking Index is a product of Sport Canada, based on data collected and compiled through the Sport Tracking, Assessment, and Technical Statistics (STATS) database.

The frequency of senior world championships varies from sport to sport and, in some cases, between disciplines of a sport. Consequently, the number of sports and events awarding medals at senior world championships differs every year, making it difficult to establish a consistent comparison method of a nation’s performance based on its total results at senior world championships from one year to the next. In order to reduce the impact of these annual variations, two parameters are considered in the development of the Index.

Parameters

1: Olympic medal events

The sports that are on the current Olympic program represent a total of 339 medal events. These events have well-established international competitive opportunities across continents. In addition, they are all regularly contested during senior world championships and Olympic Games. Although field sizes and number of entries per nation are generally more restricted during Olympic Games, the sport-specific and event-specific rules and conditions are the same in both types of competition. This, then, provides the first step to developing a consistent and valid comparative approach.

2: Four-year cycle

The use of aggregate results over a multi-year period is a well-established and proven method of ranking nations. Soccer, Volleyball and Figure Skating are just a few sports whose International Federation uses a World Ranking system based on aggregate multi-year results to rank nations, teams or athletes.

During any concurrent four-year cycle, every Olympic medal event, whether summer or winter, has one Olympic Games and at least one Senior World Championship. For the four-year cycle ending in December 2018, this represents a total of 1,479 events. Furthermore, the aggregate four-year total of events for any given sport tends to remain proportionate to the number of events on the Olympic program the sport represents out of the total of all Olympic events.

Limitations

1: Olympic sports and events only

The Index does not include results achieved in non-Olympic sports and non-Olympic events. The number of Olympic sports and events is a known and limited parameter while the number of non-Olympic sports and events is open. There are dozens of non-Olympic sports that have World Championships but that are either not played or not supported in Canada. There are also a number of non-Olympic sports that are well organized and supported in Canada and elsewhere, but are less widely represented. The absence of standards regarding minimum field sizes, number of nations, selection criteria and event frequency further complicates the identification of which non-Olympic sports and events could or should be included. Sports and events added to the Olympic program are included as of the third year preceding their debut at an Olympic Games. Sports and events discontinued from the Olympic program are removed following their last Olympic presence or in the year a replacement event is approved by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

2: The length of the ranking cycle has an effect on ranking

The four-year cycle aggregates performances across all of a sport’s Olympic events in each of its World Championships and Olympic Games of that four-year cycle. Sports that have both a large number of events and an annual World Championship carry more weight than sports that have worlds every 2 years or that have few events. In addition, a number of winter and summer sports have annual World Championships including in Olympic years. In order to avoid any double counting, a maximum of one result per year is included in the Index. Therefore, in the case of a sport having both Olympic and Worlds the same year, only the Olympic results are included for that year.

3: Ranking is based on four years

The Index provides an accurate representation of a nation’s ranking as of December 31 of each year based on the cumulated results of the past four years. This does not provide an accurate representation of results achieved for a specific year. Any given year’s results only account for approximately a quarter of the four-year ranking.