What are ranking series tournaments in wrestling?

As is evident from the name itself, ranking series tournaments are conducted to determine the world rankings of wrestlers in a given year.

When it comes to wrestling, the World Ranking Series are one of the most important tournaments in the sport. The United World Wrestling (UWW) supervises the successful organisation of every world ranking series tournament in a year.

But what are these ranking series? The World Ranking Series are nothing but a series of tournaments which judges wrestlers’ overall world rankings based on how they perform in these competitions. These ranking series end up contributing to ranking points to the wrestlers that participate and the wrestlers establish the World Ranking at the end of the year.

In any calendar year, except the Olympics, four ranking series tournaments are held throughout the year. In a calendar year that includes the Olympics (e.g. 2024), only two ranking series tournaments will be conducted.

According to a circular by UWW, each year will feature four Ranking Series events (with all three styles per event) and these series will be one in the Americas, one in Asia and two in Europe respectively.

What are the ranking series tournaments in 2023?

1st Ranking Series: February 01-05, Zagreb, Croatia

2nd Ranking Series: February 23-26, Alexandria Egypt

3rd Ranking Series: June 01-04, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

4th Ranking Series: July 13-16, Budapest, Hungary

Four ranking series tournaments are set to be held in 2023 since this is a non Olympic year. Of those four, two will be conducted in the month of February itself. The first ranking series takes place in Zagreb in Croatia from February 1. Meanwhile, the Egypt will host the second ranking series tournament between February 23 and 26 in Alexandria.

All the top wrestlers end up competing in the ranking series in order to grab maximum points in order to boost their world rankings by the end of the year. The importance of ranking points attained in these ranking series cannot be overstated.

Unlike other major sports like tennis, football, wrestlers do not earn ranking points from all international tournaments as the United World Wrestling (UWW) doesn’t officially recognise all of them.

Besides the ranking series tournaments conducted by UWW, Continental Championships, and World Wrestling championships also offer ranking points and wrestlers try to participated in as many events as possible in order to find higher ranks and get better seeded.

In each ranking series, countries get points in each section (men’s freestyle, Greco-Roman, and women’s freestyle). The country that finishes with the most points ends up taking first place and the pattern follows after taking into account the cumulative points of all the wrestlers from that particular nation.

A separate points table is also mentioned in these ranking series where the medals of all three events are taken into consideration.

What has been India’s recent performances in ranking series?

Last year, India were placed second in the 2022 Tunis Ranking series. They won a total of 23 medals which includes six gold, 10 silver, and seven bronze medals.

India were unable to field most of their star wrestlers in the first ranking series of 2023 in Zagreb. The topmost wrestlers like Bajrang Punia and Vinesh Phogat were deemed unfit because of the lack of preparation as they were staging a protest against the WFI and its president.