We keep monitoring the global development of freestyle slalom. In 2014 we saw that after certain drops of various numbers they seemed to get back to normal. Whether they stay stable in 2015 or not, let's have closer look.

Events

There were 95 events in 2015, 2 less than in 2014:

• 35 "Δ" events or "0c" (+11 from 2014)
• 39 "Δ" events or "1c" (-10)
• 13 "ΔΔ" events or "2c" (-1)
• 7 ΔΔΔ events or "3c" (-2)
• WFSC (World Championship) had no ranking level.

Being a special grand event with limited access WFSC was excluded from the Rankings. The number of "3c" events decreased by 2: there were none in Germany and Singapore, China hosted 2 instead of 3. Congrats to Poland which ran a "3c" event for the first time. We can say "2c"s kept status quo withing unofficial limit of "5 per a continent" for Europe and Asia plus 2 in South America and 1 in Africa. But balance between "1c" (49->39) and "0c" (24->35) drastically shifted to the stater competitions side. Over one third of all WSS 2015 events had level "0c".

NB. Senegal (Africa) added to Asia's stats.

• 60 (-1) events, 63% in Europe
• 20 (-1) events, 21% (-0.6%) in Asia
• 5 (+1) events, 5.2% (+1%) in N. America
• 10 (-1) events, 10,5% (-0.8%) in S. America

Events "golden weight" (introduced in 2013 analysis) dropped down from 110,4 in 2014 to 93,5 in 2015 with WFSC counted as +4 to keep stats compatible. Proportion of event distribution by regions remained unchanged with 1% error.

The chart on the left shows us proportion between classics (blue colors) and battles (red colors). It shifted slightly in favor of classic: 57/77 in 2014 turned into 56/72 in 2015. Classics went on to gain popularity among starter events.

The number of events organizing countries became 25 (-2 from 2014). The list of non-permanent countries changed as usual: Switzerland, Hungary, Malaysia and Bulgaria were gone and replaced with Ukraine, Iran, Peru and Mauritius. The countries on the diagram below are ranked by their "golden cones weight". It's counted as a golden cones sum of organized events. Value of a "grey cone" is 0.1 to make a difference in case of equal golden ones. The leader is forever the same - France with 14.2 golden cones. China's close with minimum distance (14.0), Russia (9.1) stepped down from 3rd place for Italy (12), and Spain (5) in its turn stepped down from 5th for Poland (8.1). White numbers at the bases of the columns are integer "g.c. weight". Comparing to 2014 when the "0c" events flood started the picture hardly changed.

This report is not a part of a larger research yet, thus some long-term diagrams could be useful here to contemplate current tendencies of the slalom world.

Growth of "grey-cone" events went on but was leveled by the drop of "1c"s. Thus total number of competitions remained almost the same. That's a new tendency save for 2008 when "0c" was introduced.

The next two charts show classic/battle stats for all 9 years of WSS. Parity between classics and battles has little changes. Their numbers got closer in Europe and further in Asia.

Skaters

Sportsmen's numbers are stable, no bursts and no drops detected.

The balance between people who joined and left Rankings is close to usual 50% in freestyle and over 60% in speed slalom. Less than a half skaters stay in Rankings longer than a year which is a quite common picture.

The number of successful (meaning active) skaters is defined by 500 points threshold for freestyle and 400 points for speed slalom like it's described in WSSA 2007-2012 Statistics. The chart shows that in 2015 their numbers went down in all disciplines. More than that, for the first time there were less than 100 active skaters in Men Freestyle (99 and 10.3% in Dec). Other disciplines held close to their usual marks. Women Freestyle and Men Speed Slalom were about 80 (74 and 11.6%, 81 and 7.4% accord.). Women Speed Slalom was about 60 (58 and 8.3%). We observe that percentage lowered as well: from 9-12% in 2014 to 7-11% in 2015.

Men Freestyle Slalom

The situation here was changing all the year. Top countries took the leading position in turns - China, France, China, France. Russia (59->55) rose from 3rd to 2nd place. Timchenko brothers represented our country in the top-10: Sergey braced the 1st line with iron grip of his countless wins and Alexander successfully raised himself to the 2nd line at the end of the year. Puzanov Artyom visited 10th place briefly as well. Despite the good but decreasing number of Italian skaters in top-100 (19->14) Italy took mostly 4th place. Only Guslandi Lorenzo hold a place (#6) among the best but his friends were not successful enough. China started the year with a powerful company of heroes in top-10: Ye Hao Qin, Zhang Hao and Guo Fang. Eventually only Ye Hao Qin stayed firmly on the top. China (84->130) got plenty of new skaters almost reaching France (141->150) in numbers but France had more heroes after all. Claris Alexander and Lebois Romain stayed in top-10 the whole year and were joined by Tierry Teddy in October. It put France on the 1st place.. There were many (74->48) Spanish skaters in the ranking but mostly on lower positions, thus Spain was #6. Sulinowski Michał from the top and his Polish colleagues pulled Poland up on the 5th place. Yu Jin Seong and Lee Choong Goon couldn't do much and Korea remained in the tight knot with Indonesia and Brazil. There were too few Koreans (12). Thailand started well but went down to #10. Its top skater Sawangsri Kanchanok dropped from 9th line under 100th.

Women Freestyle Slalom

The battle for the 1st place among Russia, Italy and China ended up with our certain victory. Daria Kuznetsova was holding #1 line for 15 months (from Aug 2014) but had to step down in November by missing several events due to a foot injury. Granjon Zoé (FRA) claimed #1 after her. At the top Daria was permanently accompanied by Zenkova Anastasia. Dubinchik Ksenia took her time to hone slalom skills high enough to confidently enter the list of the best skaters in July. The presence of Russian girls from top-10 (3) to top-100 (21) is impressive. China and France went along rather close and finished together. France had just one hero Granjon Zoé who hopped from 6th to 1st line. As usual France dominates here by total number of skaters (113->100). To tell the truth, Indonesia managed to overcome that number a little (83->107). Chinese top girls changed their places many times. Su Fei Qian and Feng Hui got some help from Guan Yu Xiang on the 10th place but in the end there was only Feng Hui left. Meng Yun joined her in November. Poland progressed nicely and finished the year on the 4th place. Hartmanis Klaudia didn't leave #2 line almost the whole year (save for Aug and Sep on #3). Prucnal Angelika stopped skating and dived below #100. She was successfully replaced by Czapla Paulina (#8 in Dec), her younger sister Ewelina just several places lower. A special mention for Boiko Maryna from Ukraine who stayed on the top places for many years. In 2015 she resided at 2nd and 3rd lines. Other countries from the charts, Indonesia, Spain, Brazil and Taiwan, didn't provide heroes.

Men Speed Slalom

France dominated here just as usual, both by insane number (273->247) and high level of top skaters. 4 French guys were active at the ranking's top moving around it: Lebois Romain, Claris Alexandre, Fort Jimmy (finished #3) and Fort Yohan (finished #4). Claris and Lebois were in the second five. Glorious for its speed slalomers Italy didn't shine as brightly as usual. Although the country's level was stable, heroes left the paramount and the common number lessened (55->43). Nai Oleari Simone gave up #1 to Ye Hao Qin (CHN) and went 20 more lines down. And Brivio Savio changed his favorite 2nd line for 27th. At the very end Quiriconi Nicolas managed to get to the top for the first time and took 7th place. We can say he saved Italy's honor here. China boosted its results and passed Italy, leaving it on 3rd place among countries. Zheng Jia Ming, Ye Hao Qin and Guo Fang started the year in the top-10. In October Zheng Jia Ming went down and Pan Yu Shuo came instead but just for 1 month. That's the top-10 list in Dec: 2 Chinese, 4 French, 1 Italian and 2 Polish skaters. Poland developed well in speed slalom and provided 2 new heroes for it: Sulinowski Michał #9 and Jaworski Dawid #10. But who's unmentioned skater from the top? Timchenko Alexandr (RUS) rose in September up to the 2nd place! Russia (65->51) lost a few skaters and took 5th place among countries. There were Yu Jin Seong (KOR) and Wu Dong-Yan (TPE) visiting the top but they didn't hold there well. They represented countries close or even below 20 points line along with Indonesia, Spain and Hong Kong.

Women Speed Slalom

France led firmly in this discipline (175->196). Granjon Zoé was among the best all the time, and Derisbourg Tiffany helped her until she was replaced by Moreno Laurine in September. Then Zoé managed to push Wang Tzu-Chien (TPE) from the 1st place who had been holding it for 12 months. Italy lost 1/3 of its skaters (61->42). Bossi Barbara, Rotunno Cristina, Morbidoni Camilla started in the top-10 but gradually went down. Only Morbidoni Camilla could grab 9th line in December ranking. Eventually Italy finished together with rising China (58->90) on the 3rd place. Meng Yun stood solely for China among the fastest on the 5th line since August. Poland (36->62) went along with Russia (36->62) but made a mighty push and finished the second. 3 Polish girls were in the top-10 in the beginning: Hartmanis Klaudia (#5), Czapla Paulina, Prucnal Angelika. In August Czapla Ewelina came instead of Angelika. In Demecember they rose close to the very top: Klaudia #3, Ewelina #4 and Paulina #8. The last in top-5 countries is Russia (40->45). Many years a participant of top-10 Lysenko Kristina started her retirement and slid down the ranking. At the last moment Zenkova Anastasia grabbed the 10th line for Russia's honor. Komarchuk Ksenija from Ukraine (4->18) took the 6th place. Beside Ukraine there were Taiwan, Spain, Idonesia and even Mexico among the 2nd 5 top countries in this discipline.

Summary

We see clearly that the 2014's tendency went on in 2015: more "grey" starter events, less "golden" ones. The total "golden weight" of 2014 is 110.4, and only 93.5. Can it be that it's more difficult to organize high level event (world crisis and such)? The total number of events (95) doesn't show lack of enthusiasm. There must be enough certified judges for "1c" everywhere. At least it wasn't a problem before. And total numbers of participants didn't change much so it's too early to speak about a loss of interest from their perspective. We can only state that organizing capacities (or interest of organizing parties) started to decrease. Therefore the numbers of active skaters went down as part of them couldn't earn enough points.

The number of leading slalom countries remained the same. There were most French skaters everywhere due to great number of events in France (23 of 95). That was almost 3 times more than in Russia (8). Other countries organized even less competitions. Traditionally there were also China, Italy and Poland in the top list. Poland showed good growth in numbers and levels this year. The second 5 countries vary in different disciplines. Spain and Indonesia were everywhere, then countries with lesser numbers of skaters: South Korea, Ukraine, Thailand, Brazil, Taiwan, Kong Kong and even Mexico (just took a vacant 10th place in Women Speed Slalom). There were just 10-20 skaters in rankings from each of them. Germany disappeared from all charts completely.

Rumors about separate Junior Rankings were just rumors. And, as we know, there were no such rankings in 2016 as well.

2015 highlighted new heroes of slalom, who entered Ranking's top tens for the first time:

Women Freestyle: Czapla Paulina (POL).
Men Freestyle Thierry Teddy (FRA), Sawangsri Kanchanok (THA), Puzanov Artyom (RUS).
Women Speed Zenkova Anastasia (RUS), Moreno Laurine (FRA), Czapla Ewelina (POL).
Women Speed: Timchenko Alexandr (RUS), Quiriconi Nicolas (ITA), Sulinowski Michał (POL), Jaworski Dawid (POL).

XLSX-file with data of 2015: Rankings themselves, charts of presence, competition lists and more statistics in charts and numbers.

Go to: "World Slalom Series Statistics 2007-2012".

26.12.2016, Milyokhin Dmitry