World cup

For the association football competition simply known as "the World Cup", see FIFA World Cup. For a more exhaustive list, see World Cup (disambiguation). For World championships, see List of world sports championships and List of world championships in mind sports.

The Alpine Skiing World Cup consists of a series of competitions where results are counted together

A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. A world cup is generally considered the premier competition in its sport, with the victor attaining the highest honour in that sport and able to lay claim to the title of their sport's best. However, in some sports the Olympic title carries at least as much prestige.

There are a number of notable popular sports competitions labeled "world cups", such as the ICC Cricket World Cup, but perhaps the best known is the FIFA World Cup (an association football tournament, first held in 1930), which is widely known simply as "the World Cup".

Differences between world cup and world championships

Some sports governing bodies prefer the title "world championship" or a related term; some even organize both a world cup and a world championship with different rules. Usually, such competitions take one of two forms, a short periodic competition or a year-long series of meetings, but more frequently many sports have both World Cup (usually competed with more races of a season), and world championship (usually a single event). Some examples in the following table.

Sport	World Cup	World Championships
Alpine skiing	FIS Alpine Ski World Cup	FIS Alpine World Ski Championships
Archery	Archery World Cup	World Archery Championships
Artistic gymnastics	Artistic Gymnastics World Cup	World Artistic Gymnastics Championships
Athletics	Athletics World Cup	World Athletics Championships
Cross-country skiing	FIS Cross-Country World Cup	FIS Nordic World Ski Championships
Cycling	UCI Road World Cup	UCI World Championships
Diving	FINA Diving World Cup	FINA World Aquatics Championships
Fencing	Fencing World Cup	Fencing World Championships
Rhythmic gymnastics	Rhythmic Gymnastics World Cup	World Rhythmic Gymnastics Championships

A periodic world cup or world championship usually takes the form of a knockout tournament (possibly with an initial group stage). This is held over a number of days or weeks, with the entrants eventually being whittled down to two, and the tournament culminating in a world cup final. The winner(s) take the title of World Champion(s) and hold it until the next time the event is held (usually one, two, or four years later). This format is most common in team sports, as with the FIFA World Cup or the ICC Cricket World Cup.

Season-long format

A contrasting concept, popular in individual sports, is a year-long competition with several meetings over its course. In this format, victory at an individual meeting earns a number of points, and, usually, a number of positions below also score points inversely related to their position. Contestants accumulate a number of points over the course of the year (often "season") and their cumulative total after all meetings have been concluded determines the World Champion or, simply, World Cup winner. The winner is then considered the champion until the next World Cup.

See also

• List of world sports championships, including those styled as "World Cups"
• World Cup (disambiguation)
• World Series (disambiguation)