Last March we released the Sportspedia 100 list for the best sportspeople in the world for the year 2020. A clear pattern is that most of the world’s best athletes are the best because they have been around long enough to become some of the best of all time in their respective sports.
Of the 110 athletes we listed, only one is under 22 years old (Alphonso Davies (CAN)) so we decided to also create a World Sport Ranking for the best sportspeople in the world aged under 22 between the years 2020-21. That is, sportspeople born in or after January 1st, 1999. Athletes from a total of 150 sports were considered and the results of this list are purely based on quantitative analysis. This is the first effort of this kind in the world.
We utilized the same formula used in Sportspedia 100. That is: 60% of the points correspond to Excellence in Performance within a given year relative to competition (meaning the sport results compared to the competition faced) and 40% corresponds to Historical significance of the achievements within the year (records and milestones). We account results from January 1st, 2020 to May 15, 2021.
Every single one of these sportspeople listed has already won a world-class event and in the majority of cases they are -individually or as part of a team- the very best in their sport. In some instances they are World Record holders and already the best within their sport.
It is important to stress that this is not a lot assessing “popularity”, “future potential” or “talent” but rather to objectively discern who were the most successful sportspeople in the world born in or after January 1st, 1999, for the year 2020-21. As you can see, a quarter of the list is occupied by Bayern München players -including the first two-, which is a testament to the historic dominant run that the team had during that period as well as the opportunities they gave younger players.
Exactly half of these individuals were successful through collective achievement. The other half includes athletes like Armand Duplantis (SWE, 3rd), who has still not been an Olympian but has already broken some of Sergey Bubka’s (UKR) records, as well as three other athletics World Record Holders.
The list also includes Donovan Hunt (ENG, 5th), who is already arguably most successful FIFA esports player of all time, and five sportspeople with disabilities that are already among the very best in their sport and could be major figures in the upcoming Tokyo and Beijing Paralympic Games.
Feel free to drop any comment at editor@sportspedia.net and click on each individual to know a bit more about their achievements.
