Hello All
Yesterday I touched on how one starts competing in kettlebell sport.
Today I am going to tell you about the ranking system.
As per Wikipedia:
“Unified Sports Classification System of the USSR is a document which provided general Soviet physical education system requirements for athletes. The classification was established in 1935 and was based on separate classifications, which existed for several sports disciplines before. Since 1949 it was revised every four years, the period, which corresponded to the Olympic cycle, to reflect new standards for the physical training. The document contained test standards, principles and conditions, necessary for the conferment of sports ranks and titles, for all sports, cultivated in the USSR.”
The great thing about this, well in my experience anyway with kettlebell sport, is that unless you are in the Master of Sport categories, your really competing with yourself. I have found that in competition, your competitor who may be of a similar “amateur” rank is more then willing to share some advice and help you achieve a great result
The Girevoy Sport Association of Australia uses the IUKL rank for beginner countries (this means us in the west)
So looking at the table:
1. What event are you competing in?
2. What weight category are you in? example, if you are a 77kg male you would be in the 78kg class for whichever event you chose
3. What weight kettlebell will you use? the colour scheme follows the colour of kettlebell, example, 16kg is yellow, 24kg is green etc etc
4. How many reps did you achieve in competition? Say I competed in long cycle and weigh 77kg and use 20kg kettlebell, I would need to achieve 53 reps to hold rank 2
For biathlon as it comprises 2 events it would mean I add up score in jerk (1 point for each rep) and for my snatch portion (I add up total and divide by 2, as i am only using one kettlebell) so if I achieve 80 jerk with my 20kg and 140 total with snatch, my final score is 80+70=150 clearly achieving rank 2
Hopefully this help clarify what a rank is and how the table works