World Rankings

The World Curling Federation World Rankings track and list the success of all Member Associations.

Points are awarded once per season, per discipline, to Member Associations.

Member Associations are allocated points either, after the qualifier events or after the World Mixed, Wheelchair, Wheelchair Mixed Doubles, Women’s, Men’s and Mixed Doubles Curling Championships.

In an Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games season additional points are awarded for Member Associations competing at the Games. Great Britain are associated with the nation who gathers Olympic and Paralympic Qualification Points. This nation are assigned at the beginning of the four-year Olympic and Paralympic cycle and cannot be changed until the beginning of a new cycle.

Member Associations gain points over four seasons and with each new season the value of the points awarded, in the previous years, decreases. Points are worth:

100% at the end of the current season
75% one year back
60% two years back
40% three years back

Each year, at the World Curling Championships, and once every four years at the Olympics and Paralympics, points are awarded as follows, for finishing: First, 240 | Second, 200 | Third, 180 | Fourth, 150 | Fifth, 120 | Sixth, 110 | Seventh, 100 | Eighth, 90 | Ninth, 80 | Tenth, 70 | 11th, 60 | 12th, 50 | 13th, 45.

Teams that do not qualify for the worlds but participate in one of the regional qualifiers or the World Qualifying Event also receive points based on their performances – from 45 points down to one point. How these points are distributed varies depending on the event because each event has a different number of teams.

In a given season, once the points have been distributed to each Member Association, that Association’s total is divided by the maximum number of points available over the four-year period and multiplied by 100 to give a percentage score. The percentage scores are then used to determine each world ranking placing.

The World Rankings were developed by 1998 Olympic gold medallist and World Curling Hall of Fame recipient Patrick Huerlimann of Switzerland, who was Vice-President of the World Curling Federation from 2010 to 2012. The World Rankings were first introduced in 2006.

The world rankings system was enhanced for the 2018-2019 season onwards based on work by Sweden’s Paul Ahlgren, who administers the rankings on behalf of the World Curling Federation.