I love the idea of a top 8. Most athletes aspire to reach the top, before this ranking system we based our rankings on opinions. Now there's factual information that will determine a athletes rankings.

I believe the top 8 is optimal for a few reasons; top 3 often discourages those that place is between 4th and 8th place. Often the way brackets play in your favor can determine your ultimate placing in an event. So having an annual rankings based off consistency will give us a real teir of the top athletes.

It should also inspire those who don't always place top three to show up to more events because they want to get ranked and in the future top 8 contestants may have more options for sponsors.

Having ratings and rate points make things interesting. Before you used to tell some person “I won nationals/worlds last year, I’m the best”. Yet you could have lost to someone at Zloty, Europeans, Asian cup, Zloty Tur, WAF, PAL, UAL ect. Those would each be considered separate. Now there’s an opening to unite everything under one ranking system. Which means it’s not going to come and go.