There is a need for valid and objective methods to track the sporting performance of countries. Using the sport of swimming, we have developed a method in which athletes` world rankings are combined into a country score. Methods: Top 150 rankings in the 32 Olympic swimming events were downloaded for 1990 to 2011. Each rank was assigned an importance score based on the number of athletes on each rank who ever achieved the top rank. The score was the proportion of such athletes predicted with a logistic model relating rank to proportion, and the modelled proportion was closely approximated by 1/rank. Scores for each country`s individual athletes were then summed over all events to determine a country`s performance score, representing predicted number of athletes ever achieving top rank. The method was validated by correlating country scores with country medal counts at major competitions (World Championships and Olympics). Other measures of country performance were derived using proportions of athletes achieving any topthree rank and winning gold at major competitions. Results: The mean correlation over the 22 years between medal count and country score based on 1/rank was 0.93. For scores based on logistically modelled top rank, top-three rank and gold, the correlations were 0.94, 0.92 and 0.95 respectively. With score-estimates based on 1/rank, the three countries with the highest scores in 2011 were USA (a score of 41 athletes in the 32 events), China (21) and Japan (18). In the Olympic year 2008, the top three countries were USA (45), Australia (23) and Japan (17), while China was fifth (9). Although USA was always ranked first over the 22 years, the gap between first and second has become much smaller (a difference of 37 in 1990 vs 20 in 2011). Conclusion: We have successfully developed a valid and practical method for tracking the performance of a country in sports that have an annual or seasonal published list of individual world rankings. This method includes performances of athletes not winning medals and therefore allows for more comprehensive performance assessment than methods based on medal counts. The method will allow tracking and comparison of performance within and between countries and sports
© Copyright 2012 17th Annual Congress of the European College of Sport Science (ECSS), Bruges, 4. -7. July 2012. Veröffentlicht von Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.