Finalizing structure of chapter 5 (Road Racing Records)
This discussion has an associated proposal. View Proposal Details here.Comments about this discussion:
Started
Comment
I have also created a proposal for the finalization of chapter 5. If you have any comments, please let me know so that I can adapt the proposal accordingly.
The items currently listed under 5.1 General have either already been moved to section 5.2 Road Racing specific Documentation Criteria or are included in the IUF Rulebook and therefore do not need to be listed in the new section 5.1.
The fact that all records are listed for standard unicycles and unlimited unicycles has been integrated into section 5.1, so that the following list of record categories remains a little clearer.
Comment
> All Road Racing Records are kept rounded up the closest 1 s
This is ambiguous. You would either round up to whole seconds, or round to the closest whole second. I think we always want to round up. Then I suggest
"All Road Racing Records are kept rounded up to whole seconds"
Comment
I see your point, even if I wouldn't consider it ambiguous - the information “rounded up” says in which direction rounding is done and “closest 1 s” says to where rounding is done/where to stop runding up. For whole seconds, I think your wording is indeed equivalent - but when rounding to fractions of a second, I find the wording “All [...] records are kept rounded up to 0.01/0.1 seconds.” kind of unintuitive... but I'm not a native speaker ma-be the wording is periectly fine. tf a native speaker could comment on the wording, that would be great.
Comment
Where are the native speakers in this committee? It would be great if one of you could say something about the wording.
Otherwise, there don't seem to be any other comments?! I would therefore put the proposals to the vote as soon as the wording regarding the times has been clarified.
As soon as we have voted on the proposals, I would create a preliminary version of the entire guidelines - I think a large part of the work is done with the finalization of all the sections on the individual disciplines - and share it here so that we can check everything together again for consistency and see where adjustments may still be necessary that are not visible due to the many separate changes.
Comment
Why do you have the word "kept" in that sentence. Isn't it easier to say: "All road racing record times shall be rounded up to the nearest second" or even simpler as the whole section is about road records "Record times shall be rounded up to the nearest second"
Comment
Thank you for your feedback - as I am not a native speaker, I am happy to adopt your wording here, provided it also makes sense for 0.01/0.1 seconds or 0.01/0.1 meters.
Would the wording also work without “times” - as “All records must be rounded up to the nearest 0.01/0.1/1 s.”? This would have the advantage that it could also be formulated analogously for the distances: “All records must be rounded down to the nearest 0.01/0.1/1 m.”
We can also leave out the category name everywhere, as it is indeed clear from the context which records the rule refers to.
Comment
I think the word "kept" was there for a good reason. Times are often recorded with greater resolution than we want to "keep" them. E.g. track racing time measurement often outputs time to 3 decimals, e.g. 16.703 seconds. These times are recorded by the system, and available to the operator of the timing equipment and other officials. However, once we list them in results lists, or perhaps on a record certificate (and thus "keep" them forever), they must be rounded to a lower resolution as described. I think it is useful to distinguish between these raw hig-resolution data and final rounded data, and to make that distinction the word "kept" was used.
That said, apparently "kept" is not very clear on what is meant. How about changing it to "published" but otherwise keep (no pun intended) the wording?
Comment
You're right that exactly what you describe was my thought behind the “kept”. I don't know how this aspect is for native speakers, so please give some input.
Comment
The statement "All records must be rounded up to the nearest 0.01/0.1/1 s." isn't ideal, as it doesn’t specify which unit applies in which context. As I had written, it implies rounding to the nearest second only, which could lead to inaccurate or misleading representations of record times. For example, under that rule, a time of 9.001 seconds would be rounded to 10.000 seconds — the same as a true 10.000 — even though there’s effectively a whole second difference between them.
It seems that what we need is clarity around both how we round and what level of precision is appropriate for each event type or duration. Rather than forcing a single rounding rule for all records, I suggest a two-part approach:
-
Rounding convention
Something like:
“Record times shall be rounded up to the nearest specified decimal place.” -
Precision by duration
We can then define the expected decimal places based on the total duration of the record, e.g.:-
< 1 minute: round to 3 decimal places (0.001 s)
-
1–20 minutes: round to 2 decimal places (0.01 s)
-
20 minutes–3 hours: round to 1 decimal place (0.1 s)
-
> 3 hours: round to whole seconds
-
A similar tiered structure could be applied to distance records, rounding down rather than up.
This kind of structure would ensure fairness, reflect measurement accuracy, as we have already discussed, and maintain consistency across event types. This is only an example of what could be done and would need adjustment from discussion if we do adopt this method.
Comment
I think you misunderstood me. The accuracy of 1 s or 0.1 s or 0.01 s is already fixed. My question was only about whether we could also use the wording “All records must be rounded up to the nearest 0.01 s.” in the categories where it currently says "[...] are kept rounded up to the closest 0.01 s.", for example.
So I don't want to use the version "0.01/0.1/1 s" somewhere, I just wanted to know, if the wording is suitable for all variants.
Comment
If it is specified for all instances then we can just say:
“Record times shall be rounded up to the nearest specified decimal place.”
Comment
Regarding the term “kept”:
I think we need to be cautious here. I completely understand why the concept of a “kept” time is being suggested, but it might lead to confusion or misinterpretation if not handled carefully.
Here’s a scenario:
Suppose Rider A finishes in 9:00.001 and Rider B in 9:00.999. If we follow the rounding rule and round both up to 9:01, then officially, both have the same result — which is what we want, especially given our known limitations in timing precision. However, if we also keep and publish the original unrounded times (e.g., in a “kept” or “recorded” field), it will appear to outsiders that Rider B was clearly slower — even though we’ve determined they should be treated as equal for record purposes.
This introduces a risk of undermining our consistency. While we understand the nuances — that we round up to avoid false precision and ensure fairness — someone outside the committee might misinterpret the “kept” times as definitive.
So perhaps the best approach is to allow the full recorded times to be shown at the event level, for transparency, but not include them in the official record listing. The record itself should reflect only the final, rounded value — the one that has been formally verified and accepted under the agreed precision rules.
This keeps things fair, avoids confusion, and maintains the integrity of our published records.
Comment
> However, if we also keep and publish the original unrounded times (e.g., in a “kept” or “recorded” field)
But in your example, I see no problem in keeping the times with the required accuracy, because that contradicts the publication of the original unrounded time. Otherwise we would also keep this unrounded time officially and this would be against the rule.
> The record itself should reflect only the final, rounded value — the one that has been formally verified and accepted under the agreed precision rules.
That was exactly the idea behind the rule - regardless of the resolution with which the results were initially measured, they are always only kept in the rounded manner prescribed.
But if the word “keep” leads to confusion here, then we should indeed swap it for another.
Comment
The method for rounding off the official race time is defined in the rulebook section 3D.16.
Since the rules for rounding off official road and track times are based on World Athletics regulations, I think the same wording as World Athletics should be used.
These rules are specified in the C1.1 &C2.1 Competition Rules & Technical Rules document
In the section specific to world records (C1.1 Competition Rules 31. World Records, page 25), there is no indication of how to round off the official time. There are only references to the regulations (C2.1 Technical Rules), such as:
- (page 28) 31.14.1 The performance shall be timed by official timekeepers, by a Fully Automatic Timing and Photo Finish System (for which a zero control test has been undertaken in accordance with Rule 19.19 of the Technical Rules), or by a Transponder System (see Rule 19.24 of the Technical Rules) complying with the Rules.
For your information, in these sections, here are the sentences that specifically correspond to how to round time:
- (Hand Timing page 31) 19.10.2 For races partly or entirely outside the stadium, unless the time is an exact whole second, the time shall be converted and recorded to the next longer whole second, e.g. 2:09:44.3 shall be recorded as 2:09:45
- (Fully Automatic Timing and Photo Finish System page 33) 19.23.3 For all races held partly or entirely outside the stadium, all times not ending in three zeroes shall be converted and recorded to the next longer whole second, e.g. 2:09:44.322 shall be recorded as 2:09:45
- (Transponder System page 33) 19.25 For all races, all times not ending in zero shall be converted and recorded to the next longer whole second, e.g. 2:09:44.3 shall be recorded as 2:09:45.
World Athletics does not explicitly state that world record times are official times. If we want to specify this explicitly, it can be in the WR guidelines or the rulebook. In my opinion, we can leave the sentence you propose, the "kept" referring to the fact that the official time is already rounded to the nearest second according to the rulebook.
Comment
To be honest, I don't know what exactly the committee's suggestion is for paragraph four - should we change the wording or would everyone agree with the current wording?
The current proposal says “4. All Road Racing Records are kept rounded up the closest 1 s.”, Klaas had noted that this could be confusing and therefore suggested to change the wording - this could be something like “4. All Road Racing Records are kept rounded up to 1 s.”. For the other disciplines, the wording would then change accordingly to “[...] are kept rounded up to 0.1 s.” or “[...] are kept rounded up to 0.01 s.”