Guarantee junior category at UNICON
Comments about this discussion:
Started
"9D.4 Categories
Male and female competitions should be offered in each of the following categories: Junior
Expert (0-14), and Expert (15+). The Advanced category is optional however it is not
allowed at Unicon. If there are less than 3 Junior Expert competitors, they may choose
whether to compete in Expert or Advanced. If there are less than three females or less
than three males overall, the male and female categories may be merged."
Suggested to be deleted
Let's ensure that there is always a Junior category at UNICON even if there is less than 3 riders. Juniors deserve their own category and a chance to win even if there is not a minimum of 3. It's unlikely to happen with rising numbers of riders, but I believe it should still be in the rulebook to guarantee fairness.
Equally, I would also advocate for a removal of merging male and female categories for less than 3 competitors - for the same reason. Female riders deserve to have their own category due to physiological differences. Obviously, the decisions of the gender committee will have an influence here too, but it's unlikely these changes will happen in this round of the rulebook. So I would like to propose the above change here until the gender committee adds new rules.
Comment
I can understand the proposal very well, but I don't actually see such a regulation as a useful discipline-specific regulation, but as something that should be recommended uniformly for all disciplines. In particular, the implementation at Unicon should be uniform for all disciplines and not differ from discipline to discipline.
I would therefore suggest discussing at this point what would make sense from the Flatland Committee's point of view - I would pass this recommendation on to the Main Committee and the Age Group Committee.
I think it would make the most sense if the categories (both in terms of gender and in terms of junior/senior/whatever) were standardized and centrally regulated for all disciplines. There should also be a common basis for age categories (“basic age categories”). In my opinion, the discipline-specific rules should then only regulate in which form an age group rankings can be carried out and which of the “basic age groups” are used for this.
Comment
I agree with Marie. There should always be Junior categories and there should always be a Female category.
If the main or age group committee do come up with regulations across all disciplines these would make discipline specific regulations invalid, but I am not convinced that's going to happen.
So I would suggest, we do a proposal to guarantee these categories, that would only take effect if the main and age group committees do not find a standardized solution. This would also serve as information for the committees on what the Flatland committees point of view is.
Comment
I was about to create a proposal for this - when a question came up in my mind: Do we only want to make this mandatory for UNICON? Or should this be a general IUF rule for all competitions running according to IUF rules?
Comment
Good call. I would probably like to see it for every competition following IUF rules.
The only downside would be super small competitions who might want to have a single age group. But those competitions will not follow IUF rules anyways.
Comment
I think most organizers will offer both categories / finals on their own initiative if the rulebook provides for two categories (junior and senior or whatever they are called).
However, I would point out that a strict requirement that there must always be both categories would mean, for example, that no separate junior and senior events would be possible, at which either only one or only the other category would be offered. Basically, I am of the opinion that the organizers of competitions should be given as much freedom as possible, especially with regard to which group of participants they want to address with their competition - I think it makes a big difference whether you make specifications for the execution of a discipline itself, which of course must be comparable everywhere, or for the organizational process of a event, which I would include, for example, which age group a event addresses. Of course, not every organizer should be completely free to do what they want, I think the rulebook should definitely provide a framework here in the sense of: “If there are two classes, then the classes 0-14 and 15+ must be used” - the organizer can then decide for themselves whether the subdivision makes sense for the respective event.
And I would also require in the rulebook that if an organizer decides to offer both classes, both classes are held regardless of the actual number of participants - so either offer only one from the beginning or hold both in any case.
Comment
I think I agree more with Ian - making it a requirement for most competitions (or at least for UNICON and Nationals). I wasn't impressed with what I heard about the French Nationals last year and I've had to fight for Female and Junior categories at British Nationals before. Maybe it could include a sentence about small competitions in particular and include your suggestion for a requirement of stating it upfront, Jan? Would that be okay as a compromise? There's also always the option to hold a competition that is not IUF-conform.
Comment
Just to make sure I understand you correctly: You’re suggesting a junior final and a junior world championship title at Unicon. I can absolutely understand that wish – and within national championships, it's certainly manageable.
However, from an organizational perspective at Unicon, this presents some significant challenges. Our goal is to ensure that all disciplines are treated equally and that we maintain a consistent structure across age groups.
If we offer a separate junior final in one discipline – such as Flatland – we would need to do the same for all others to be fair. That would result in more than 30 additional hours of junior finals, which unfortunately exceeds the time we have available in the overall Unicon schedule.
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I dont know how it is in other disciplines but in flatland the prelim doesnt really reflect what flatland is about since you have no batteling so having no junior category would mean that all juniors cant really participate in flatland.
Comment
> I think I agree more with Ian - making it a requirement for most competitions (or at least for UNICON and Nationals).
For "most competitions" is quite different from making it mandatory for all competitions - with my comment, I just wanted to point out the effects of a very strict rule that makes something mandatory for all competitions.
I would definitely agree with you that there should always be both categories for world, continental and national championships - but personally I would leave it up to the organizers / federations whether they offer both categories at a joint championship or hold separate junior and senior championships.
> There's also always the option to hold a competition that is not IUF-conform.
Of course, but I think we should try to avoid designing our rules in such a way that many competitions make use of it. In the end, I think the sport benefits more if as many competitions as possible follow one set of rules.
> Our goal is to ensure that all disciplines are treated equally and that we maintain a consistent structure across age groups.
> If we offer a separate junior final in one discipline – such as Flatland – we would need to do the same for all others to be fair. That would result in more than 30 additional hours of junior finals, which unfortunately exceeds the time we have available in the overall Unicon schedule.
I absolutely agree that all disciplines should be treated equally and it is incomprehensible if there are junior finals for some disciplines and not for others - I am also trying to resolve this in the Age Group Committee.
In many (I would say most) disciplines there is already a junior final at Unicon - this includes, for example, all the artistic freestyle disciplines, X-style, but also street and flatland. This would effectively mean that no new final would be introduced here, so no additional time would be needed compared to previous Unicons.
No junior finals are currently foreseen for the Track disciplines, although the additional time required here is negligible and with, for example, three days of Tack at a Unicon, junior finals could easily be integrated into the same three days. In the Road Races, there are only final rankings anyway and no ridden finals, so that no additional time would be necessary here either. In the Muni section, only Downhill would be affected, but the additional final should also be possible to integrate into the existing schedules without any major problems. So you would only really need a lot of extra time for the trials and jumps - but I think we are a long way from 30 extra hours here.
Comment
The discussion is now drifting towards something that should be decided outside of the Flatland committee.
Let's try to keep it Flatland specific.
If the Age Group committee comes to a conclusion how to handle Finals/Final Ranking and standard age groups, whatever we decide here might be invalid anyways, but until then and in case that committee doesn't come to a conclusion, I strongly vote for changing that section of the rules to something like this.
If an organizer decides to have a Junior competition, there also needs to be a guaranteed Junior Final and/or Title, regardless of the number of Junior riders.
This way organizers can still decide to just to an Adult only competition (prohibiting 0-14yo riders to even enter the competition), but if they do choose to offer Junior riders entry to the competition, it needs to be a separate competition (if following the IUF rulebook of course, people can organize events however they like if they diverge from the rulebook)
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I am okay with making it mandatory for competitions under IUF if that finds a majority? If not, I think we should at least make it mandatory for nationals and UNICON.
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Shall I prepare a proposal with mandatory for all and see if it passes?
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I really like the suggestion from Ian and would support this.
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@Marie, please prepare a proposal then. Thank you.
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Will do tomorrow!
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Thank you for creating the proposal. A small editorial note: I would leave the first sentence as it is in the original rule and add a note that it may be changed by another proposal l ike for the second sentence, there is already a proposal from Ian for that.
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You mean the one about Advanced and Expert? Not sure if I agree because it's not relevant anymore under the new rule? But maybe I am missing the point here
Comment
My point is the following:
The old Rule is
9D.4 Categories
Male and female competitions should be offered in each of the following categories: Junior Expert (0-14), and Expert (15+). The Advanced category is optional however it is not allowed at Unicon. If there are less than 3 Junior Expert competitors, they may choose whether to compete in Expert or Advanced. If there are less than three females or less than three males overall, the male and female categories may be merged.
and with your Proposal you want to change the sentence in bold. For the first sentence "Male and female competitions should be offered in each of the following categories: Junior Expert (0-14), and Expert (15+)." Ian has already prepared another proposal to change the sentence (https://iuf-rulebook-2025.committees.unicycling-software.com/proposals/46). This first sentence is therefore also affected by the fact that it may be changed by another proposal.
Comment
Thank you, Jan! I get it now. I will change it :)