World Slalom Series Statistics 2007-2012

It was no easy task to collect data from Rankings 2008-2010 because of absence so handy ID numbers. They were added to work with number arrays, not text ones. That revealed many funny (until you have to deal with them) glitches, such as differently typed names of same people. Russians liked to use different latin spelling of their names (Dasha, Daria, Darja, Darya; Alexej, Aleksey, Alexey). People from Spain, Argentina, Singapore used long trains of their names with different number of "cars" and different order. Europeans with special signs over letters (e.g., è, á) had those signs often omitted - all or some of them, differently. And Asian names still give a chill, 'cause their latin transcriptions had lots of variants. Sometimes only comparing of hieroglyphs could confirm if we had one person or 2-3. All that made plenty of doubles in a Ranking, most of which were found and corrected.

So, we present you a report, based on the first years of WSSA Rankings - 2008. Of course, it includes results of 2007 as well. The main feature of 2008 was activity of IFSA whose competitions Sebastien Laffargue had to delete from WSSA Rankings by demand of IFSA President Vincent Vu Van Kha. There's no point to highlight this unpleasant story more than necessary, but it had heavy impact on the Rankings. Let's just have a good look at countries and their sportsmen, trying to prove their sport level through the new WSSA Rankings.

Competitions

Events count is now summed of real events number, not battles plus classics. There's separate stats for them as there was before.

There are 38 events in the list:

• 18 «Δ» or "0c", none in 2007
• 14 «Δ» or "1c" (-8 from 2007)
•   4 «ΔΔ» or "2c"(-2)
•   2 «ΔΔΔ» or "3c"(+1)

To make things a bit easier such exotic place as Mauritius is counted as Asian region instead of African. Unknown Japanese “trick slalom” was ignored. Two special “easy travel” regions were added – Schengen zone and visa free zone of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus (R-U-B).

There were more "golden coned" contests in Europe than in Asia by 5 "1c", but they had double "3c" Championship in Singapore.

In 2008 Seb added a "grey cone" level for more distinct events ranking. Its points table starts with 50 points for a winner. "Grey" contests, usually local and less attended, introduce new sportsmen who don't travel far and costly. These novices in numbers can greatly improve their Country Ranking, because their presence is a good evidence of a developed system of slalom contests and popularity in general. There were several “grey” competitions in China, Great Britain, Russia, South Korea, Spain and Japan. But only first 4 took serious part in World Slalom Series: "1c" in all (3 in Germany), plus a “2c” in all (2 in China). Special mention for Singapore (2 “2c”) and France (1 “1c”) where “3c” Championships were conducted in each.

The new method is applied to rank events organizing countries. Now "golden cone weight" is counted as total sum of conducted events levels plus 0.1 of "grey cones" number. It helps to make a difference in case of equal "golden cones weights". According to this Germany (5.1) and Singapore (5) had the highest activity. Russian was on the 4th place with China (3.3). France took the 3rd place with 4 golden cones. White numbers at the columns' bases are integer parts of "g.c.w.".

Here's an interesting fact. Only 3 Russian contests in WSSA Rankings 2008 among all European ones were classics and judged by IFSA rules. Excluding all IFSA events from the Rankings, Seb made an exception for us as a token of good relations. And in the most slaloming country in the world – France – we see only 2 battles in Paris and Lion. All others French competitions were IFSA events. On the other hand, in Asia classic type of freestyle slalom was more in favor than battles! Asian Slalom Skaters Association (ASSA) developed their own rules quite unfamiliar for European skaters. These rules are now accepted and used worldwide.

Skaters

Let's now observe four slalom disciplines and, for the start, dynamics of total skater numbers in each.

Men Freestyle slowly went up but other 3 went down, especially Women Speed Slalom. At the end of 2008 there were less than a hundred girls in the Ranking. The reason is the same – deletion of IFSA skaters and their achievements. By the way, the table shows huge turnover participants - more than 50% (usually about 60%) of them leave the Ranking every year. That's pretty normal for the slalom world as other years prove.

Slalom Disciplines

The first chart shows the best 10 countries in our Country Ranking. Those are usual France, Russia, China, Italy. Germany and South Korea had many skaters in those old times. Singapore, newly joined to WSS Spain, Great Britain and USA.simply took free places in the top-10. The chart shows steep drops of French (95 to 38) and Italien (48 to 15) skater numbers. Don't worry, they'll mend this loss in the next 2009. Numbers of Spainish and Singaporean guys leaped up. The other countries have rather smooth and stable dynamics. In the end of 2008 only Russia and Korea crossed 40 skaters line. A special mention for China soaring above all others higher than “100” line. This dominance along with strong presence in top-10 and top-100 makes China “the roof” of the first chart. Slow displacement from top-100 by sportsmen from other countries lowered China's high mark but its leading position was unquestionable. 3-5 heroes in top-10 with support of hundred more was not easy to beat. The heroes were Guo Fang, Lan Wang Heng, Bao Hui Fa and gone down Lin En Ning, Gong Xian Liang. Russia almost entire year was second after China. We traditionally had strong presence in every ten but in top-10. Still we had our heroes there – Ryazantsev Kirill and Gurevich Misha. France was presented in top-10 by such great people as Igor Cheremetieff, Sébastien Laffargue, IFSA fans Robin Tessier, Oliver Hererro and Yohan Ford. Igor only in March and April gave up the 1st place to Kim Sung Jin, which was accompanied by Yu Jin Seong. German hero was Op't Veld Rudy, Italian – Tiziano Ferrari.

The situation is pretty much the same. Many French (47 to 7 ) and Italian (33 to 5) girls were fired from the Ranking. It seems that most of European slalomers ignored WSS competitions not only abroad, but in their homelands as well – PSWC, Lion, Pincio. Those few who visited them remained in the WSSA Rankings. Thus by the end of 2008 France went down from 1st to 4th place and Italy from 5th to 10th. Still in top-10 held steady Chloé Seyrès and Fanny Violeau. China here also had majority in top-10 and in total numbers. The only leading country which gained more skaters over the year. Chen Chen led the Ranking from September after waiting half of the year on the 2nd line. Qin Chun Yan and Meng Yun supported her in top-10. Two more Chinese girls at the start of the year stopped skating and disappeared from the Ranking. Russia had stable 2nd place after France until March, then since May – after China. In April we can see a glorious meeting of Russian slalom girls in top-10: Polina Semenova, Nadezhda Zelenova, Anzhelika Babiy, Yulia Isaeva, Fadina Olga. But on long terms only Polina (the whole year) and Nadezhda (8 months) remained there. The 3rd place was for South Korea. Kim Kyung-Mi and Sin Eun Youn provided high score for their country. Germany was represented by Miriam Kwasny, who helped to gain 6th place among other countries. The rest of them didn't have significant freestyle slalom achievements. For example, Naomi Grigg, well known to us since Lausenne 2003, and Cheril Evans were the only two girls from Great Britain. Poland, Ukraine, Japanese entered this WSSA Ranking for the 1st time.

After all disturbances China became first at the year's end. Russia, France and Germany were exchanging 2, 3 and 4 places. Singapore, Belgium and Poland entered the Ranking from zero. After the French bailout we had 3 our slalomers in top-10: Kirill Rayazantsev, Misha Gurevich and Anatoly Gorbatov. But in December only Misha was still there. French heroes are also well known: Sébastien Laffargue himself, Igor Cheremetieff and Le Xuan. Gregoire Pinto joined them in December. There were also Milleret Jean-Baptiste from GBR, Yu Da-Jin from Korea and Tiziano Ferrari from Italy.

It looks amazing now but China led even here! Its sportswomen are numerous (up to 40) and they are so successful that 2-3 of them were in top-10 permanently: famous Chen Chen and Ye Run Shi. Until the bailout top-10 was full of IFSA girls like Séverine Thomas, Chloé Hiver, Chloé Ingremeau, Lopez Herrero Claire, but in the end only Chloé Seyrès remained unmoved from the 1st line. After the loss of 46 people out of 53 France shared 3rd place with South Korea. Russia found itself on 4th place. Indeed, we had many good sportswomen, and even in top-10 rather long presence of Yulia Isaeva and Nadezhda Zelenova (lines 2 and 3 in April). Polina Semenova and Kristina Lysenko joined them in May, and then Olga Fadina. But alas, non of them was there in December. They were pushed out by Naomi Grigg (GBR), Kwasny Miriam (GER), Jeong Jae Wong (KOR), Lin Chia-Chi (TPE). Poland and Italy were in the bottom of the charts yet.

Summary

The first year of WSSA Rankings and the 2nd of the World Slalom Series was rather uneven. The main cause of that was active rivalry with IFSA. European sportsmen had to choose where to participate and the choice was not always for WSS. Though that was hard time for Seb's project in Europe, we know that WSS eventually prevailed. Unwise Vinz' decision to cut off IFSA events from WSS doomed his own project. IFSA's World Championship 2008 in Moscow was acknowledged by FIRS, and maybe that allowed Vinz to think he could dictate his terms. Well, that's just a history now. Returning to WSS we see how old European slalom countries like France, Russia, Italy, Germany began long and difficult struggle with China, whose athetes were skillful and numerous. There were also many Koreans with Kim Sung Jin at the lead. The Ranking started to fill up with sportsmen from newly joined to WSS countries Poland, Spain, Singapore, Ukraine, Thailand, Taiwan and Japan.

XLSX-файл with data of  2008: Rankings themselves, charts of presence, competition lists and more statistics in charts and numbers.

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