The Hindu : FIH to introduce world rankings

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Sep 03, 2003

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Sport - Hockey

FIH to introduce world rankings

BRUSSELS Sept. 2. The International Hockey Federation (FIH) is launching its first official world ranking system in October 2003.

The ranking system will be used to determine the pool composition of major FIH and continental federation events and their qualifiers. Comparisons of relative strengths of internationally active countries will be provided at regular intervals and at the end of each cycle of events, like the Champions

Trophy and Challenges or continental championships.

The rankings will be based on the final rankings of the countries' senior teams at the Olympic Games, FIH world-level events, continental championships and all qualifying events for these tournaments. Separate rankings will be available for men and women and the points for continental federation events will be included to reflect the different standards/participation that exist between the five continental federations.

The ranking system will have both current and past performances. However, results from the past will carry less weightage with each passing year (25 per cent discount per year over a four-year cycle) before they are completely removed from the calculations.

The system will ensure that success at a single tournament — even the Olympic Games or World Cup — will not be sufficient to make up for poor form in the preceding three to four years, and vice-versa. The ranking system is expected to reflect a team's performance over a four-year cycle.

The FIH Secretary General, Peter Cohen, said, "A lot of work has gone into establishing the system. It has been extensively and successfully tested over the last year. The FIH world rankings bring to the hockey world an objective, open and transparent system to determine pool compositions at major events as well as adding considerable statistical interest to the results of those events."

The first FIH official world ranking will be published in late October at the conclusion of the All-Africa Games, the final event of the current cycle of continental championships.

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