2D.4 Age Groups - various aspects
Comments about this discussion:
Started
Since there will be a separate Age Gruops committee, we will probably not create a proposal for this topic here. Nevertheless I would like to discuss some things here in the committee, which I would like to take to the Age Groups committee.
1. When the last rulebook update merged chapters 2 and 3, chapter 2D.4 Age Groups was left unchanged (as far as I remember). This leads to the fact that the relays, which traditionally have different age groups than the other track races (often only U11, U15 and 15+), are actually not allowed to be announced as usual at the moment.
I would therefore suggest to explicitly include relays and their different age groups in chapter 2D.4.
2. Section 2D.4 requires that age groups are always separated into male and female. In the last few years it has become quite clear in Germany that especially at "youth events" in the age groups U9 and U11 mixed age groups would be very useful. I think the rulebook should give the event hosts more freedom in this respect. Are there any experiences from other countries?
3. I think there should be a clearer distinction between the rules for Unicons (and possibly international competitions - whereby the question arises what exactly is to be understood by this) and those for other competitions. This refers more to rule 1C.7 Age Groups and there especially to rule 1C.7.2 Combining Age Groups.
In Germany we have the problem on many unicycle racing competitions (up to the German Championships) that the rules for combining the age groups simply cannot be applied reasonably, because this creates age groups (e.g. 11+ male), which simply do not allow a fair comparison between the riders, which sometimes leads to a lot of frustration among the riders - up to the point of demanding to break away from the IUF rules and simply apply own rules.
I think it would be in the interest of the riders to give the hosts more freedom again (because there was a time when this was the case), how age groups are announced and how they are merged.
What are the experiences in other countries regarding unicycle racing competitions and the age groups?
Comment
I can't speak to the specifics, but I believe we should be very specific for Unicon/world championships, slightly less specific for national events, and more less stringent for other events. At the same time, we want to avoid creating impossible or untenable situations for those major events, such as too-wide age groups. They do need sufficient freedom, potentially even at a Unicon, to make things work.
Comment
I can't speak to the specifics, but I believe we should be very specific for Unicon/world championships, slightly less specific for national events, and more less stringent for other events. At the same time, we want to avoid creating impossible or untenable situations for those major events, such as too-wide age groups. They do need sufficient freedom, potentially even at a Unicon, to make things work.
Comment
Thank you for your feedback, which is in line with what I would imagine for the age group regulations very generally.
Especially very wide age groups unfortunately occur very often with the current regulations at events in Germany, which is not appreciated by many riders. I could imagine that a possible solution for this problem would be if the hosts get the possibility to have certain age groups independent of the number of participants (e.g. U11, U15, U40, 40+).
Comment
In our national championship (which usually attracts about 100 participants), we follow IUF Rulebook as much as practical. For age groups, we start with five groups: 0-10, 11-13, 15-18, 19-29 and 30+, male and female separate, which is the minimum specified by the Rulebook. Then when the participant list is more or less complete and it is time to order medals, we combine age groups as necessary to get at least 6 competitors in each age group (per discipline). For the combining, again we follow IUF Rules. In this process, the 0-10 age group is maintained separate even if it has fewer than 6 riders, which is often the case for e.g. 10 km, if only because in our event they must ride with 20" standard wheels (24" not allowed). Besides, our 0-10 is male and female combined.
All in all, this sometimes results in very wide age groups, up to 11+. This is not really satisfactory, but still the best we can do. I can't think of better rules to improve the situation.
Comment
I noticed that in the Flatland subcommittee some changes regarding the age groups and their merging in the Urban disciplines were discussed - unfortunately I don't have the possibility to discuss there. In the past, discussions in the track subcommittee were always ended quite quickly with reference to the age group committee, which is not completely unreasonable with regard to a uniform and cross-discipline solution. However, if proposals were to be made and accepted in the Flat subcommittee, this would lead to greater differences between the disciplines.
I will list here what I have heard from the discussions:
The proposed age groups are the following:
0-9 Kids/Child
10-14 Junior
15-34 Adult
35-49 Senior
50+ Master
Regarding the merging of age groups:
Categories should never be merged
Minimum amount of riders to do a category lowered to 1
While I find a part of the proposal in principle not bad, namely that certain age groups remain regardless of the number of participants, I would actually find it better if the organizer could decide for himself how he announces his event and is not prescribed that these age groups must always exist. At the same time, the proposal 0-9 years does not fit to the existing rules, where there is a U11 (0-10 years), which would mean changes especially because in the track rules, if here a uniform rule is aimed at.
All in all, I really hope that this year there will finally be a joint age group committee for all disciplines and that things can be discussed there together.
Comment
> In the past, discussions in the track subcommittee were always ended quite quickly with reference to the age group committee, which is not completely unreasonable with regard to a uniform and cross-discipline solution.
I'm not aware (speaking about the last 10 years or so) that there has even been a functioning Age Group committee. In fact, about 10 years ago, I tried to get this off the ground together with Benoit Gonneville Damme (head organiser of Unicon 17). This failed due to, dare I say, not enough support from IUF at the time.
In this year's rulebook round, an Age Group committee is listed. As soon as I got wind of this, I applied to be a member. Unfortunately, this hasn't happened. Actually, the Age Group committee doesn't seem to have any members. I don't know why this subject always seems to be neglected.
Urban have had their "own" age group rules for a while. I would agree that it is at least worthwhile to discuss to what degree we can unify the approach to age groups across all IUF competitive disciplines.