The Bandy World Championships are a competition between bandy-playing nations. (They should not be confused with the Bandy World Cup, a club competition.) The tournament is administrated by the Federation of International Bandy.
Although bandy has been played since the 19th century, the first men's world championships were only played in 1957, and the first women's ones were only in 2004. From 1961-2003, the men's championships were played every two years, but has since then been played annually. The WCS in 2010 was first cancelled,[1] but then Moscow agreed to organize it on short notice. [2] In 2014 it is planned to be played in Sochi at the same time as the Olympic Games.
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For a long time, only four countries competed in the world championships: the Soviet Union, Sweden, Finland and Norway, with the Soviet Union as the dominating country. Since then, more countries have joined the tournaments, starting with the United States in 1985. The interest for the sport has spread to other parts of Europe, North America and Asia, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 also opened the way for separate national teams from the former states of that union. The record number of participants are 13 for men and 7 for women. With more nations competing, group B was created. From 2012 there will be a group C for the first time as 15 or 16 countries will participate. Japan and Ukraine will make their first World Championships, and possibly also Lithuania.[3] Russia, Finland, Sweden, Kazakhstan, Norway and USA will play in group A, Belarus, Canada, the Netherlands, Hungary, Latvia and Mongolia in group B and Estonia, Ukraine, Japan and maybe Lithuania in group C. In each championship, the best team in group B used to go into a playoff match with the team which came bottom of the A-group, replacing them if they won. There will be no playoff match in 2012. The last team of group A is automatically relegated and the 1st team of group B promoted.
The interest is biggest in Sweden and Russia. For a few times now it has been shown on Eurosport 2. FIB has given the rights for the 2012 tournament to SPORTLIVE LLC.[1]
Countries in italics no longer compete at the World Championships.
| Country | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Medals |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Russia Soviet Union |
6 14 20 |
7 2 9 |
1 1 2 |
14 17 31 |
| Sweden | 10 | 14 | 7 | 31 |
| Finland | 1 | 7 | 19 | 27 |
| Norway | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Kazakhstan | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| Year | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Venue |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2004 | Sweden | Russia | Finland | Finland |
| 2006 | Sweden | Russia | Norway | United States |
| 2007 | Sweden | Russia | Norway | Hungary |
| 2008 | Sweden | Russia | Finland | Sweden |
| 2010 | Sweden | Russia | Norway | Norway |
| Upcoming events | ||||
| 2012 | Irkutsk, Russia[7] | |||
| Country | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Medals |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sweden | 5 | 0 | 0 | 5 |
| Russia | 0 | 5 | 0 | 5 |
| Norway | 0 | 0 | 3 | 3 |
| Finland | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
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