Seasons (Closed for comments)
Comments about this discussion:
Started
The rules were written in a time, when there usually was one or in a Unicon year two events per year. That is no longer the case, there is much more unicyclists now and many more events throughout the year. Also training improved and some already plan their training one year ahead. And that doesn't play well anymore with the rules for one event per year. As such problems arise (and Freestyle in Germany is already negatively affected by this):
- Athletes are assigned to group/class by first day of event
- Disadvantage for people having birthday on/off-season (competitive phase)
- Huge impact on their competition requirements (wheel size, routine length)
- Unfair training planning and preparations
- Unfair competitions due to extra challenging situation
It's biased, unfair and favors athletes based on their birthday.
We can mitigate this by paying respect to a season and give every athlete the same condition for their preparation and as such ensure equal competitions.
As age is currently defined in section 1.D1 of the rulebook. I'd likely define the necessary terms to explain season + series:
## 1.D1 Definitions
Season: Your annual training year, periodized usually in three phases.
Preparation phase: Build up competitive form
Competitive phase: Hold competitive form
Transition phase: Regeneration
Series: A series is a set of events with a defined start and end date.
Recommendation is to have the events no longer apart than 6 weeks (competitive form declines after that time).
Qualification Series: Best placed athletes qualify themselves for the next higher competition (eg. State -> Regional -> National -> International)
Cup Series: A loosly set of competitions, each standing on its own, yet allow awarding the best overall athlete for the entire season.
Season Due Date: For a qualification series the event date of the highest competition. For a cup series the event date of the highest competition when available otherwise organizers must pick a reasonable date.
And then finally update the age to include the season due date:
Age: Rider's age for all age categories is determined by their age on the first day of the event, regardless of whether any events occur that day or the due date of an associated series. Time of birth, time zones and date of arrival at the event are not relevant.
The will not have any negative side-effects to what is happening right now, but will contain the necessary rules to those who would make use of season to provide an equal competition for their athletes.
Comment
I think this is wildly more complicated than it needs to be and I don't know of another sport that has it outlined like this in their rules. Certainly sports do have all of these natural seasons but it doesn't need to be codified in the rulebook this way.
I do think that it's confusing to have the different start ages. I would be in support of a competition age being based upon your birth year. That way it is the same for an entire calendar year. This is very common in other sports.
Rider's age for all age categories is determined by their age on December 31st of that year. Thus your “competition age” will be the same or one year older than your “true age”.
Effectively, your age is defined by your birth year, so if you are turning 16 at any point during the year, your age is defined as 16 for all competitions within the year.
Comment
Hello everyone,
To emphasise the importance of these definitions, I would like to give a few examples here.
In Freestyle Germany, the championships are distributed as follows:
State championships from April to July
Regional championships (northern and southern Germany) in September and October
National championships in November
To explain our problem a little, a season for us actually always starts right after the German championships. Here, new routines have to be edited and then put together again. Then we train until the state championships, only to fall into a summer slump, after which we prepare again for the regional and national championships. This leads to no break in the calander.
With the introduction of seasons and the corresponding phases, we could set fixed championship breaks.
It would also be important to introduce a season due date.
Currently, the championships follow the IUF rules, with the first day of the championship as the age limit. This means that within a competition year, some riders change age groups and compete against riders who are not the same age as they were at the beginning of the year.
To solve this problem, you could use the birth year (or season due date). The advantage of season due dates, however, is that a national championship can already qualify athletes for the next international competition (usually held a year later) in the same age groups.
The idea for seasons is to give stable training conditions for one year. Birth year would work if the season matches the calendar year. With Unicon to be the final Event of a (qualifying) series and that most of the time in July would not match. Also there is always the issue with training in the northern hemisphere but competition in the southern hemisphere (as Unicon in NZ). This will likely forever be an issue, but seasons allow for better control over this.
Comment
I might not be right but I geuss this only effects to freestyle riders? because in urban we use the rule from the day you turn 15 you just move to aldult. so pritty easy. I dont think we could find a good way for this because (correct me if i am wrong) freestyle works already different then for example urban. i do see the point of what you guys say here (for freestyle) but i dont see it working out well in urban. because we usualy just have junior and aldult and if your born in dec its a bid shit. kids from 14 arent (most of the times) so strong as mens from 18 and there is a huge gap of does levels. (i know in freestyle this works diferently so i get the point in that way) so is it really needed to have 1 age group rule for every dicipline!?
Comment
I think that it is important to remember that the IUF Rulebook needs to be able to apply to as many competition types and countries as possible. I appreciate you advocating for changes that will work well for Germany but I don't know that this makes sense to put into the rulebook.
I also agree with Roos that it seems to be applying to be more simple for Freestyle (which if we standardize the routine length as is in another proposal than this becomes a non-issue).
I think that we could take a step forward by having birth year be the determiner of age. This helps give stable training conditions for one year which as you stated is your main goal. I think that birth year is simpler and makes it so it is the same for different countries (who have qualifiers at different times).
Comment
> I think this is wildly more complicated than it needs to be and I don't know of another sport that has it outlined like this in their rules. Certainly sports do have all of these natural seasons but it doesn't need to be codified in the rulebook this way.
I would totaly agree to that statement.
> I would be in support of a competition age being based upon your birth year. That way it is the same for an entire calendar year. This is very common in other sports.
Even though many other sports apply this principle, I think one of the most positive aspects of the age rules in unicycling is that we don't apply this principle, but use the age on the day of the competition as the basis for our age group division. Why?
An annual age rule consistently disadvantages riders who have their birthday very late in the year, as they are always the youngest at all competitions. With our current regulation, we have the advantage that the composition of the age groups changes throughout the year and also riders with birthday late in the year become one of the older athletes in their age group at the end of the year.
Of course, no matter which rule is applied, someone will always be disadvantaged because they are the youngest in their age group - but the great advantage of our current rule is that it is not always the same athletes who are disadvantaged by their date of birth, but that it affects different athletes at each competition and therefore does not become a general disadvantage for athletes who have their birthday late in the year.
From years of competition experience, I can say that the younger athletes are always extremely happy when an older competitor changes age group at some point and they themselves become one of the older athletes.
We would be giving up this great advantage with an annual age rule - but for what advantages?
> It's biased, unfair and favors athletes based on their birthday.
But an anual rule is also unfair and favors athletes based on their birthday - but compared to our current rule always the same athletesand not different athlets during the year.
- Disadvantage for people having birthday on/off-season (competitive phase)
I don't see any clear disadvantage to individuals under the current regulations. Competitions are spread over the year and with an anual rule there would be a clear disadvantage for people having birthday very late in the year.
- Huge impact on their competition requirements (wheel size, routine length)
In the races, there has always been the option of voluntarily starting with a larger wheel in the higher age group - but this option is (practically) never used because all the athletes you talk to say that they prefer to change wheels during the season and be one of the oldest in the age group rather than changing wheels before the season. So from the athletes' point of view, changing during the season is definitely preferred.
- Unfair training planning and preparations
Why?
- Unfair competitions due to extra challenging situation
But competitions in which the same athletes are always the youngest in their age group because they have their birthday late in the year are also unfair. Isn't it fairer to spread the “disadvantage” evenly over everyone than to always hit the same people?
Comment
I do think the disciplines that are the most affected by this are Freestyle and Track because of the changes in routine length and wheel size. However, if Freestyle can agree to standardize the routine length (we'll see what happens in that proposal) then it is not an issue there. I trust Jan's expertise with talking to riders for track and if athletes prefer to change wheel size during the season then that's fine.
No matter what there are always athletes who are advantaged or disadvantaged, not only because of biological age but because of physiological differences. We know that not all 13 year olds are developed the same, of course. So I think that we are working towards fairness as much as we can, while also aiming for simplicity. I think that I can get behind a birth year age or leaving it as it is.
Comment
Don't get me wrong, I think the change from junior to senior (in freestyle) or from U11 to U13 (in the races) is always a big change and it definitely has a lot of consequences for the athletes - but these consequences mainly affect the change from these two age groups. For all other age groups, it doesn't really matter which one you end up in, because the changes have no effect on training.
I think it should therefore be open to all athletes to voluntarily change age groups (U11/U13 or U15/15+) at the beginning of a year/season or to voluntarily start in a competition in the corresponding higher age group. But I am also sure that the vast majority of athletes would not do this. And that's why I would never agree to a regulation that makes this switch obligatory - because precisely those athletes who would otherwise switch late in the year and would not voluntarily make use of this option would be forced to switch early by such a regulation.
Comment
This is basically obsolete, as you are already allowed to define an altenative "age" as per announcement/bidding/offer of your event - or accompanying documents describing your season.
But people read it as strict as such, they don't see this possibility, which brings us to the point from Patricia:
> I think this is wildly more complicated than it needs to be and I don't know of another sport that has it outlined like this in their rules.
Exactly, but other sports do have the education for having the knowledge in that.
Basically, the provided definitions were indead educational in the shortest form possible (take one sentence away and it would stop working) in allowing readers to see this possibility.
Since people are not interested in this educational additions and it can be done, and Unicon would be unchanged in here it is obsolete.
Comment
I don't think the majority see any need for concrete rule changes here - if there are no objections, I would therefore close the discussion.