Performance Results from EYC2026: Countries. Part One.

Sometimes the numbers can reveal much more about the effectiveness of sports organizations’ events and activities than all the empty, flashy rhetoric spouted by talking heads and hollow leaders. We’ve already mentioned the psychological challenges organizers face when hosting most championships and tournaments, where the pursuit of profit causes the event to lose its prestige—and, as a rule, the sport itself suffers as a result. Quantity doesn’t always translate into quality or contribute to the development of sports as an attractive and commercially successful product.

So, representatives from 12 countries took part in the “most prestigious” European championship. In total, including participants in the Blitz and Rapid events, 312 people took part. If we consider only the classic program—which is more prestigious and truly significant for assessing players’ strength—then 216 people participated in the classic event. The difference between strong, serious players and “draughts plankton” is 96 people! This raises a valid question:

How does “draughts plankton” affect the results of national teams?

How effective is the “draughts plankton,” and how is it related to the number of medals won by various national teams?

The tables we’ll be referring to are included in the photos attached to this post. You can also find them via the links:

Photo 1 / Photo 2

To proceed with the analysis and synthesis of the statistical data, let’s establish the necessary parameters and criteria for our study, and also note several general points and trends in the checkers movement, as well as the related youth policies of various federations.

General and Distinctive Trends:

1. The absence of youth sports means the complete “demise” of the sport. For several years now, the following European countries have been absent from youth championships: Israel, Germany, Armenia, Georgia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, and Turkey. Some representatives from these countries serve on various governing bodies of international and European federations. This creates an ethical conflict. After all, as we have already noted, without youth sports, the sport itself is dead. What and whom will these countries’ representatives represent, and whose interests do they actually serve?
2. The following countries reported catastrophically low numbers of participants: Azerbaijan, Belgium, and France. There is cause for concern regarding the French and Belgian national teams, as representatives from these very countries were among the founders of the World Draughts Federation. And now, on the eve of the 80th anniversary of the FMJD’s founding, these countries are showing the world that they, too, face major problems in youth sports and policies regarding young athletes. It is also worth noting that the French team did not participate in the Blitz and Rapid events. This suggests that even representatives of one of the FMJD’s founding countries do not consider Blitz and Rapid to be priorities or important events.
3. An artificially created group for draughts players that nobody needs. Why waste energy on artificially creating a group for people who don’t actively play draughts? If the world’s top draughts players—including those from the Netherlands, Russia, and Belarus—are not participating in this U-26 group, then holding this competition is pointless. And please note that, with the exception of the Netherlands, no European country is currently capable of fielding enough participants not only for a full-fledged national U-26 championship, but even for a full-fledged U-19 championship. To whom, then, are medals and champion titles being awarded in this artificially created group? For draughts “amateurs” and young people who haven’t found their place in adult sports. And until full-fledged national championships are held in these age groups, we consider holding European championships in the U26 age group not only impractical but even a utopian marketing ploy.
4. This is the group we exclude from our calculations when assessing the strength of national teams. As with the calculation of the Solkoff coefficient, we decided to exclude the weakest group, which says nothing about the development of youth sports or its quality. Strong draughts schools—as evidenced by the numbers—that produce strong athletes and contribute to the development of the sport are always represented in the U13, U16, and U19 groups. It is also impossible to accurately evaluate medals in the U10 group for two compelling reasons: a) if representatives of a single country make up 30% of the total number of participants in a group, then the correlation of results is statistically invalid; and b) if participants in these groups do not qualify for the finals in their own countries, then analyzing the quality of a given draughts school based on an analysis of “draughts plankton” is invalid.

Now that we’ve explained the general criteria, in the second part we’ll discuss the effectiveness of national teams and the reasons for the failure of some of them.

To be continued…