Story of IKFF Kettlebell Sport Rankings
Posted on | February 9, 2010 | 6 Comments
Some time after becoming Technical and Kettlebell Sport Advisor to IKFF, IKFF asked me to create Kettlebell Sport Ranking System for them.
“What a fun challenge!”, I thought.
The outcome is below, but first let me tell you a bit about how this ranking system came to be and why it is the way it is.
After some pondering and talking with IKFF team a decision was made to base new IKFF Kettlebell Sport Ranking System on current Russian Ranks.
After some consideration, I decided to get rid of 12kg bells for Men’s Rankings. 16kg is a good start, don’t you think?
Another change was getting rid of 28kg kettlebells when it came to CMS Rank for guys. My thinking was that if you can lift a 28kg bell, then you can lift a 32kg bell…
The biggest challenge, however, was creation of Women’s Kettlebell Sport Ranks.
Why was it a challenge?
At first there was a question of kettlebell weight in relation to Ranks. According to AKC rankings, women could achieve Master of Sport ranking with 20kg kettlebell. In Russian Rankings, however, Master of Sport ranking was earned with 24kg bell.
In the end I decided to go with 24kg kettlebell. Sorry ladies 
I understand that 24kg is heavy and for some it seems impossible but MS rank is an honor and an extremely difficult achievement. It is true for GS and other sports. It is not uncommon to spend 1-2 years training to move up to MS from CMS rank.
Another challenge was the fact that Russian women do not do Jerk or Long Cycle lifts and thus do not have ranking system in place for women’s jerk and long cycle.
As a result, there are 3 ways for women to get their Master of Sport Rank in this new IKFF ranking system:
- Snatch only
- Biathlon
- Long Cycle
I also chatted with Oleh Ilika, World Champion and Master of Sport World Class and ran these ranking by him. He liked it and gave his stamp of approval. The rest is history.
Ok, here are the actual ranking tables. Enjoy!
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6 Responses to “Story of IKFF Kettlebell Sport Rankings”
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February 10th, 2010 @ 11:48 am
I find it a bit Ironic that Oleg gave his stamp of approval to rankings his own organization (IGSF) doesn’t use. In fact, the IGSF women still use the 16kg bell. He doesn’t even compete or coach in the Russian Federation where the women use the 24kg bell. So, he probably doesn’t realize that after 3 years, the women have made little progress.
Do you know that not one woman has hit the 20kg Biathlon ranks in the AKC yet? I’ve been doing this since 2004. I hit 221 with a 16kg in comp (and 240 in training). They are not trivial.
CI
February 10th, 2010 @ 3:04 pm
Is this based on Russian ranks or IGSF ranks? Will the IGSF go for the 24kg for women too?
February 10th, 2010 @ 4:27 pm
Catherine,
I understand that 20kg is not easy by any means.
It made sense to me to go with Russian Ranks as baseline as they are the GS powerhouse.
Remember, the goal is to promote the sport and bring it to Olympic level. We will be facing Russian women in direct competition eventually and it just makes sense to align ourselves with Russian ranks. My hope is that we can eventually find a single ranking system that everyone can agree on.
February 10th, 2010 @ 4:29 pm
Marko,
IKFF ranking tables are based on Russian ranks.
I do not know whether IGSF will go for 24kg for women but my hope is that eventually we can all settle on one ranking system.
We all need to work together to bring this sport to Olympics.
February 10th, 2010 @ 6:16 pm
The IUKL and IGSF both state on their pages that the Olympics is a goal for the future. Let’s see what happens. Right now there’s 4 different international orgs setting ranks, would or course make sense to unite them all under one org. But, having seen some of the tension between the old orgs, I don’t see it. I mean, who will be the king of the hill and who will be the lesser king
Maybe all the orgs will have to fight it out, in some huge GS event?
Maybe, in time, like 10 years, the ranks will evolve to a common system, at least I don’t see why not because human performance should have some kind of similarities? Or maybe each country will have their own?
Well, the best part is, GS is still about reps, so all results are comparable across the globe when the judging is strict.
February 11th, 2010 @ 12:10 am
Yes, Olympics is the final goal and yes, there are different rankings and tables.
The good things is that we all agree on what Jerk, Snatch and Long Cycle are. So there is hope
I agree with you Marko, at the end it is all about the reps so it is all comparable (as long as judging and lift definitions are consistent).