Countries at the World Gateball Championships

The 10th World Gateball Championships will see ninety-six teams from fourteen nations competing for the title of World Champion, this is an increase on the ten nations represented at the 2006 edition in Jeju, Korea. Table 1 lists the number of teams competing from each country, Indonesia and the Philippines will be competing for the first time.

Table 1: Number of teams from each country

.	2010 World Gateball Championships	2006 World Gateball Championships
Australia	5	2
Brazil	15	8
China	14 (host)	5
Hong Kong	5	4
India	1(?)
Indonesia	2
Japan	15	16
Macau	5	1
Paraguay	2
Philippines	2
Russia	2	2
South Korea	12	32 (host)
Taiwan	12	16
USA	4	5

Note: The six late withdrawals from the 2006 World Championships are not listed in the table above.

What is the competition format?

Consistent with the 2006 edition teams will be grouped in 24 blocks of 4 for the round-robin competition. The winning team from each group progresses to the knock-out phase of the competition.

This is a cut-throat format with the World Championship winning team likely to require eight straight victories against increasingly difficult opposition. The fact that Japanese powerhouse Greenpia Tomonokai achieved this feat consecutively at the 6th, 7th and 8th World Championships is amazing.

Despite the cut-throat nature of the event it does facilitate 96 teams, 167 matches and over 600 competitors in two days of competition.

Results from the 2006 World Gateball Championships

The table below brings together the wins and losses by teams from each country in the round robin stage only of the 2006 World Championships. Countries with more teams competing in the tournament (listed in Table 1 above) have obviously played more group matches.

Table 2: Results of teams from each nation in the round robin phase

	Wins	Losses	%
Australia	2	3	40%
Brazil	6	14	30%
China	12	3	80%
Hong Kong	3	9	25%
Japan	31	13	70%
Macau	1	2	33%
Russia	1	5	17%
South Korea	47	43	52%
Taiwan	20	23	47%
USA	3	11	21%

Note: Full results from the block draw are available at http://www.gateball.or.jp/jguweb/worldcompe/9wc/file/9wcyosen.html

The two Australian teams competing in 2006 should be very proud of their results, with both teams winning one match and giving Australia a superior winning percentage to much larger Gateballing nations including Brazil, Hong Kong and the USA.

My major take out from table 2 is the dominance of the big four: China; Japan; South Korea; and Taiwan. China and Japanese teams particularly were of a consistently high standard. This is probably a result of the difficult qualification requirements in these countries, for example the Chinese Gateball Union reported that over 200 Gateaballers recently tried out for the Chinese teams.

Table 3 shows the progression of group winners through the knock-out phase of the 2006 World Gateball Championships. All 24 group winners came from the four dominant Gateball nations.

Table 3: Progress of group winners through the knock-out phase

.	2006 World Champs- Number of Teams	Group winners	Quarter-finalists	Semi-finalists	Finalists
Japan	16	6	2	1	Winner – Osaka Midor
Taiwan	16	5	2	2	Runners Up
Korea	32	10	1	-
China	5	3	3	1

Note: Full results from the knock-out phase are available at http://www.gateball.or.jp/jguweb/worldcompe/9wc/file/9wckessyo.html

Draw

Draws are set so that countries are represented a maximum of once in each group. Given this all blocks are likely to be challenging , likely containing two or three of the largest participating nations China, Japan, South Korea, Brazil and Taiwan.