GB Women Ranked 4th in the World

[Drdr]

The latest Inside Orienteering http://www.orienteering.org/edocker/ins ... ng/2012-6/ shows that our women are ranked 4th in the world and ahead of Norway! Anybody knows if this has happened before?

Our men are doing pretty well also, ranked 5th behind Sweden, Norway, Finland and Switzerland

Roll on WOC 2015!

[Ravinous]

The list in Inside Orienteering is the top 20 best ranked runners in each Federation. 20 is quite a lot of runners and this used to be used to calculate World Cup places, However, in 2007 I believe they changed it to the top 10 list.
You can include 4 World Ranking Event Scores in your ranking and only 3 are awarded per nation forcing you to go abroad if you want 4 - a good thing for a 'World' ranking I think. However, it means the Scandies are notorieously bad at travelling - why should they - often have incomplete scores - ie not 4. Not the very top but the next tiers. Of course some Scandies do travel but not always to WREs. I think these positions in the top 20 show that Brits are relatively more mobile in racing abroad at WREs than many other nations. And the proof if that there are infact only 13 NOR women with 4 scores. Only 3 more with 3 scores and the other counting 4 have only 2. GBR have 18 women with 4 scores and 2 with 3 scores.
Looking at the top 10 list is much more indicative of a nations quality at the top. Hence them using it to allocate World Cup placings. Top 6 ranked Federations get 8 places and the rest get 6. In 2012, the women were 6th and the men 7th - hence our 2012 allocation of 8 and 6 places.
Currently GBR are 7th and 9th, so the women are heading to lose 2 of their places for 2013 and the guys are at their lowest ranking since the top 10 list was started in 2007.
Here is a summary of the positions from 2007 - 2013 (to date)
Men: 7,5,7,7,8,7,9
Women: 5,6,5,7,6,6,7
http://iof.6prog.org/WR_FedRank.aspx

[Spookster]

And of course WOC relay only needs your best 3 runners. Here's our placing in the WOC relay since 2008 (always good to go back that far )

Men: 1st, 9th, 4th, 15th, 16th
Women: 12th, 11th, 8th, 15th, 10th

[Gross]

Looks like lots of nations have 3 better runners at WOC than GBR then....

[Drdr]

Agree - but British Orienteering can still use the 'official IOF' top Federations list figures for marketing purposes etc. Can only be good - we should celebrate success from wherever it comes.