In the lead-up to the Olympics, much of India's hopes were built around the 'world No. 1' aura. As per the Tokyo Olympic Qualification Rankings, three shooters were ranked world No. 1, while Deepika Kumari was ranked world No. 1 female archer. Yet while most Indians have been underperforming, gold medals have been won by competitors far below the Indians. America's William Shaner, who won a gold medal in the 10m rifle event, is ranked 24th in the world, while Sheng Lihao of China, who won a silver medal in the same event, does not even have a world ranking. South Korea's Kim Jae-deok, who came into the archery events with a world rank of 201, won two gold medals.
World No. 1 pistol shooter Heena Sidhu herself said on ESPN's Talking Tokyo Show, "You can't say how shooters will perform based on world rankings. The way rankings are calculated doesn't justify it." " Tuesday. So why is there such a difference between ranking and performance? Here are the answers.
How many Indian shooters and archers were ranked world no 1?
Before the start of the Olympics, eight Indian shooters competing in Tokyo were ranked in the top 3 as per the Tokyo Olympic Qualification Rankings. Elavenil Valarivan (women's 10m rifle) was world No. 1, as was Yashaswini Deswal (women's 10m pistol) and Abhishek Verma (men's 10m pistol). Saurabh Chaudhary (men's 10m position) as Divyansh Panwar (men's 10m rifle), Manu Bhaker (women's 10m pistol), Rahi Sarnobat (women's 25m pistol) and Aishwarya Pratap Tomar (men's 50m 3 position) pistol) ranked second in the world. Among archers, Deepika Kumari was ranked world No. 1 in Tokyo. How has he performed?
Sarnobat and Tomar are yet to participate in their shooting events; Kumari has competed in the archery mixed team event, but has not yet completed her individual archery event. Bhaker has competed in the women's 10m air pistol and 10m air pistol team events, but has not yet competed in the women's 25m pistol event.
Apart from Choudhary, none managed to qualify for the eight-man final in their respective individual events. In the women's 10m pistol event, Valarivan finished 16th, Panwar 32nd, Verma 17th, Bhaker and Deswal 12th and 13th. Meanwhile, Deepika Kumari finished 9th after the qualification round of the women's individual archery competition.
Why was the performance far above what the rankings suggested?
The core issue lies with the understanding of the world ranking system as a barometer of sporting performance in sports such as archery and shooting. A global ranking system needs to meet certain basic principles in order to accurately reflect the ability level of players: players need to compete against each other over a continuous period of time. This is not usually reflected in shooting and archery. The number of tournaments considered for ranking purposes is limited, as is the total number of competitors. The best competitors do not always compete in the same tournament. With a reduced set of data points with which to work, ranking as a measure of performance is easily influenced by some external performance.
How will the shooting and archery rankings compare to other sports?
For example, in tennis the world rankings are better arbiters of performance. The ATP rankings draw from a sports pool of over 1,800 players on the ATP circuit, who compete in 64 ATP tournaments each year. In addition, players can earn less points by playing in the final rounds of the Challenger Tour and ITF events. To calculate the ranking, an athlete's best 18 performances during the previous year are taken into account.
In golf, the world ranking is calculated by dividing all the points a player has earned over a two-year period by the number of sanctioned tournaments he has attended. Players must play at least 40 tournaments over a period of two years, failing which they are penalized. It also prevents players from defending their ranking points. Points awarded in a tournament are distributed based on tour (the PGA Tour is rated higher in contrast to the PGTI) and field strength (calculated based on world rankings and money-list rankings of individual players). field). Earned points retain their full value for 13 weeks, then depreciate in equal installments over the next 91 weeks until they are fully depleted.
In shooting, there are less than 200 international athletes who compete at the senior level in each event. An athlete has only six tournaments in a non-Olympic/World Championship year to earn ranking points - four World Cups, the World Cup Final (should they qualify) and the Continental Championships. All rankings drop to zero at the end of the year.
The qualification ranking for Tokyo was calculated by adding the points scored in the relevant events in 2021 to the ranking points held by shooters at the time of the original postponement of the Olympics in March 2020. There were just two tournaments in 2021 where shooters could earn ranking points. To qualify for Tokyo Olympics - New Delhi World Cup and European Championships in Osijek. Covid-related travel restrictions meant relatively few international shooters competed in New Delhi and none of them were from China or Russia - who have won 12 medals at the Tokyo Olympics so far among them.
Thus a podium finish in an empty field tends to catapult a player's ranking. New Delhi: After winning the World Cup, USA's Lukas Kozeniski moved up from 94 to third in the Olympic qualification rankings. Following his event at the Tokyo Olympics, where he won the silver medal, Sheng Lihao of China moved up to sixth place, not in the international rankings.
In contrast, in the latest world rankings released after the conclusion of the World Cup in Osijek, several shooters including Divyansh Panwar and Elavenil Valarivan saw their ranks drop drastically.
It's a similar scenario: Ranking points are awarded primarily for four types of tournaments – the Olympics, the four stages of the World Cup and the continental championships. Points are also awarded in smaller events such as the Asia Cup, but the number of points depends on the quality of the field. Although the rankings are weighted in favor of recency and field quality (higher weight is given if more than a certain number of participants are ranked in the top 50), the best athletes from Korea, China and Japan do not participate. The problem - especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic - is the same as shooting.
What does the ranking say about the bench strength of a country?
While there cannot be a definitive word on the quality of a high ranking rank holder in shooting and archery, on the contrary it can say something on the bench strength of the country. Sending the same set of players to competitions while other countries do not can artificially raise the ranks. "Teams like South Korea rarely send all their best players to tournaments including the World Cup," says Dharmendra Pradhan, former coach of the Indian archery team. “They usually send some senior players and some junior players to give them exposure. Because of this, even if a player is very good, because they are not participating in as many competitions, he can’t give me that much. Ranking points don't come. On the other hand, in India we have three or four good women shooters and then there are none. So Deepika is sent for every ranking tournament. It gives her an opportunity to improve her ranking."
Then what is the purpose of ranking?
World rankings in sports such as shooting serve little purpose other than helping with Olympic qualification. While the vast majority of Olympic quotas are awarded for results in World Cups, continental and world championships, a single quota is awarded to the highest ranked shooter at the end of the qualification period. Unlike the quotas won in tournaments that belong to the country and can subsequently be awarded to any shooter, the ranking quota belongs to the shooter alone. Based on this principle a shooter need not participate in a single tournament with ranking points and still participate in the Olympics. One case is of 16-year-old Sheng Lihao of China, who had not competed in a single senior international tournament, but was nonetheless selected to represent his country at the Olympics – where he won a silver medal.
What would be an indicator of better performance than ranking?
In the absence of regular tournaments held throughout the year, coaches feel that performance in a strong home structure is a better indicator of potential. Prime points to 17-year-old Kim Jae-deok, who won two gold medals in Tokyo and the highest score in qualifying – he came into the competition with an official world rank of 201. "That doesn't mean he's actually the 201st-ranked archer in the world. That's because he's only participated in one international competition - an Asia Cup before the Olympics."
In Korea, he says, no one takes rankings too seriously; The team is selected on the basis of performance in the domestic trials. These take place over the course of a year, where almost every shooter competes with others. Trials in India usually end in a few days, on the basis of which archers are sent for competitions. "It's one thing to do well in a day or two but it's a whole different thing to perform at a high level in a year. But that's what Koreans do. Having a high world ranking isn't a bad thing but you should know," says Pradhan .