Following the IKF U23 World Korfball Championship held last month the IKF has a revised ranking of countries. There were a few countries who had qualified but did not take part in the event – BEL, AUS, POR and CAT. With their points earned in this event on the previous occasion dropping out and no points earned this time, there were some significant changes in overall ranking, the most notable being Belgium dropping from 2nd to 4th and the rise of China, Czech Republic and Germany at the expense of Catalonia, Portugal and Australia.
The next revision will be done in November following the IKF European Korfball Championship and IKF Asia Korfball Championship. The IKF ranking by the end of 2016 will be used to make the draw for The World Games. With Belgium dropping from 2nd place, they now run a chance of being drawn into the same pool as the current World Champion The Netherlands. In none of the past events such a draw would have been possible.
Points for the ranking are mainly earned through participation in IKF events with a weighting for each event given according to the importance of the event. Countries who take part in qualification for a final round also get points for that event, being ranked for example, 17th, 18th etc. Points earned are written down each year until the next version of the event when the previous version drops out of the calculations. With the change in some continental championships to a bi-annual rather than a four yearly cycles weighting reductions will be revised in November to reflect this.
The events counting at present towards the ranking are: IKF WKC, IKF U23 WKC, IKF Continental Championship, IKF Continental U21/23 Championship, IKF AOKC, IKF Asia U23KC, IKF University WKC, IKF European Bowl.
IKF Ranking 2016 as of 1 August 2016; CLICK HERE