Computer Ratings for International Men's Freestyle Nations

[maligned 529]

Below are Computer Ratings for International Men's Freestyle Nations.  These ratings were compiled by considering all individual matches wrestled in the three World Championships, the Olympic finals, and the four regional Olympic qualifying tournaments held during the last 4 seasons (2011-2014).  Each individual match was considered as a "team" occurrence.  Each team's performance was then run through an algorithm that isolates its true performance level within the context of the quality of opponents faced. 

 

--The teams below represent the nations who competed in 75% or more of the 29 World or Olympic (qualifying or finals) weight classes in the last 4 years.  The only exceptions are Cuba (62%), Puerto Rico (52%), and North Korea (38%).  They were included for their quality level and/or the regional interest for U.S. fans.

 

--The rating represents double the expected winning percentage for an average wrestler from a given nation against an average level opponent from the below-listed teams.

 

--The "raw rating" is the performance of each nation, regardless of participation rate in all weight classes.  The "rating" calculates each nation's comprehensive rating when we assume its non-participating weight classes were wrestled at half of the quality level of that team's actual competed weights.

 

--Each nation had an average of 75 individual matches that contributed to its rating

 

--A composite rating for all nations other than the 28 listed here is shown as "all others"

 

Rank      Nation               Rating       Raw Rating

1            Russia               169            169

2            Iran                    162            162

3            Azerbaijan          141            141

4            USA                   136            136

5            Georgia              132            132

6            Turkey                126            126

7            Cuba                  121            133

8            Kazakhstan        117            117

9            Ukraine               117            117

10          Belarus               116            116

11          Uzbekistan          114           116

12          Japan                  113           113

13          Bulgaria               100           102

14          India                     98              98

15          Mongolia              95              95

16          Armenia                93              97

17          North Korea          88            114

18          Kyrgyzstan           83              86

19          Puerto Rico          81              94

20          Moldova               81              81

21           Canada               80              81

22          Romania              79              82

23          Hungary               78              83

24          Poland                 70              76

25          China                   69              70

26          Germany              67              69

27          South Korea         55              56

28           Venezuela            47             51

              All Others             34

Edited September 2, 2015 by maligned

[quanon 161]

I assume you have the actual numbers handy.  Could you show us the actual first round results for the top 4?

 

I just looked at the results for world titles over the past four years -- 35% went to Russians.  Based on those results, it's hard for me to understand how the Russian team has a 15% chance of losing in the first round of any tournament.  Unless their chance of losing in subsequent rounds doesn't increase significantly?

 

Admittedly, my math skills aren't that great, but 6 rounds wrestled at 85% winning percentage = 38% chance of victory (.85 x .85 x .85 x .85 x .85 x .85).

[maligned 529]

The description of the meaning of the rating is just one way of thinking of its significance.   Another, perhaps better, way I could have said it is that the rating represents double the expected winning percentage against a randomly selected opponent from an average team from this list.  Though I've edited the original description above, I initially chose to frame it as a "first round" opponent just because that's similar to what it means practically (though it's slightly off...see below).

 

Overall, Russia was 108-21, an 83.7% winning percentage.  So they faced only slightly better than average competition in all matches combined to pull their expected winning percentage against a random opponent up to 84.6%.  Interestingly, the root mean standard error for raw winning percentage versus adjustment within the context for schedule strength for all teams is less than 2.5%--meaning teams that had almost all first round losses faced virtually the same schedule strength as those that more regularly wrestled 4-6 matches.

 

And also, there are many more "all other" participants than were accounted for in the rating system (matches between 2 nations of that type were ignored), so the real expected first round win percentage is slightly higher than the rating levels for everyone. 

Edited September 2, 2015 by maligned

[quanon 161]

Overall, Russia was 108-21, an 83.7% winning percentage.  So they faced only slightly better than average competition in all matches combined to pull their expected winning percentage against a random opponent up to 84.6%.  Interestingly, the root mean standard error for raw winning percentage versus adjustment within the context for schedule strength for all teams is less than 2.5%--meaning teams that had almost all first round losses faced virtually the same schedule strength as those that more regularly wrestled 4-6 matches.

Do you mean that the first round strength of schedule is the same for everyone, or that the strength of schedule is the same whether you wrestle one match or 6?

 

If it is the latter, that is completely counterintuitive.  What it suggests to me is that the difficulty of the matches does not increase the deeper you go in the tournament -- which would mean that the results of the tournament are random.  But that can't be the case, since we know that Russia and Iran win consistently.

 

If you could break down the actual winning percentages by round for the top 4 teams, I think that would help illustrate what you're saying.

[maligned 529]

What I'm saying is that the schedule difficulty--in terms of TEAM faced--is nearly identical between each nation.  Of course it's harder for INDIVIDUALS to go along in a bracket, and generally speaking, the schedule difficulty of most good teams is very slightly better than that of bad teams--but overall they are very similar.  For example, even though the majority of South Korean wrestlers didn't make it past the second round, their schedule strength--in terms of TEAM faced--is identical to Russia's, even though Russia had a large component of its matches made up of latter-round matches.  This is partly due to the randomness of draws allowing for a certain randomness in individual strength faced even in later rounds and partly due to the parity that exists between the teams outside the top 2 causing a variety of teams to appear in later rounds.

[maligned 529]

I posted the above ratings following last year's world championships...anybody feel like any of these teams are trending up and could be a surprise? 

[quanon 161]

Do you have win/loss percentages broken down by round for different countries?

[maligned 529]

Do you have win/loss percentages broken down by round for different countries?

Unfortunately, no.  I just have the total wins/losses and country-opponents for each nation.

 

Here's a quick sampling from 2013 and 2014:

 

Russia

R64: 2-0

R32: 12-2

R16: 13-0

QF: 10-3

SF: 7-3

F: 7-0

 

Iran

R64: 3-0

R32: 15-0

R16: 12-3

QF: 8-4

SF: 6-2

F: 2-4

 

Azerbaijan

R64: 0-1

R32: 11-2

R16: 9-3

QF: 4-5

SF: 3-1

F: 1-2

 

USA

R64: 2-0

R32: 10-5

R16: 7-3

QF: 3-4

SF: 1-2

F: 1-0

 

These 4 nations combined:

R64: 7-1 (.875 win%)

R32: 48-9 (.841; 44-5 if we take away head-to-heads from these 4)

R16: 41-9 (.820; 40-8)

QF: 25-16 (.610; 21-12)

SF: 17-8 (.680; 12-3)

F: 11-6 (.647; 6-1)