Explained: What are Ranking Series tournaments in wrestling?

The first of the four competitions begin on 1st of February in Zagreb, Croatia.

The World Ranking Series are one of the most important tournaments in wrestling. It is conducted under the supervision of UWW (United World Wrestling). Four World ranking series happen in a calendar year and these series provide ranking points to the wrestler participating and the wrestlers establish the World Ranking at the end of the year. Also, only two ranking series happen in the Olympic year. 

According to a circular by UWW, each year will have 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. 

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

Ranking Series tournaments in 2023

The first ranking series of the 2023 season is set to be held in Zagreb, Croatia from 01 February. All the top wrestlers will look to participate in the coveted event and grab all the possible ranking points as possible. 

As mentioned above, one of the main reasons for the importance of ranking series is that it provides ranking points. Unlike other sports, wrestling does not offer ranking points in all international tournaments as UWW doesn't recognise all of them. So the UWW along with the ranking series, Continental Championships, and World Wrestling championships offers points and thus all athletes ultimately have to play all events without fail to get ranked higher and be seeded. 

In each ranking series, countries get points in each section (men’s freestyle, Greco-Roman, and women's freestyle). The country with the most points in a particular section get first place and so on. Apart from this a separate points table is kept where the medals of all three events are taken into consideration.

India in Ranking Series tournaments

India claimed the second spot in the 2022 Tunis Ranking series winning ( six gold, ten silver, and seven bronze medal) accounting for a total of 23 medals. An important point here is that wrestlers can participate in the non-Olympic weight categories as well.

In the first ranking series of the 2023 season, India will be without the likes of Bajrang Punia nd Vinesh Phogat. The wrestlers deemed to be unfit (not 100 per cent match fit) as they were staging a dharna against the President of WFI.

Points distribution according to the levels of competitions:

• Level A - Olympic Games and World Championships
• Level B - Continental Championships
• Level C - Ranking Series

Ranking Series Points distribution (C)

1st - 8000

2nd - 6400

3rd - 5200

4th* - 4640

5th - 4000

6th - 3760

7th - 3520

8th - 3200

9th - 2800

10th - 2480

11th - 800

12th - 100

13th - 75

14th - 50

15th - 25

16th - 13

*If a weight category only has one bronze medal (Nordic System)

Nordic System indicates that a particular weight category has only four wrestlers to compete. Vinesh Phogat at the 2022 Commonwealth Games won the gold medal with only wrestlers participating in her weight category.