Adding commonly-held standard track racing disciplines to the WR Guidelines
This discussion has an associated proposal. View Proposal Details here.Comments about this discussion:
Started
In track racing we have a few more commonly-held disciplines than the six mentioned in the WR Guidelines (WRG) right now. I think we should add them to the WRG. In track racing we have the same standard for all races (the track, the unicycles, the timing system, the false start moitoring system) so we don't need additional rules for the new disciplines.
200 m, 4 x 100 m relay and 4 x 400 m relay
Comment
I don't know how reluctant we should be with adding new disciplines. 4 x 100 m relay is indeed a common race. 200 m is sometimes done, but not so commonly. 4 x 400 m is quite rare, isn't it? I've never seen it in competition.
On the World Records list on the IUF website, 4 x 100 m relay and 200 m are at the bottom of the page, and it is stated that they are "not yet" included in the official IUF World Record Guidelines. This seems to imply that now is the time to include them. I hesitate about the 4 x 400 m though.
Comment
I agree about the 4x100m too because it is very commonly held.
200m is a discipline that is often held in Switzerland, although not at Unicon. I‘m not sure if we should add it. What do the others think?
4x400m is indeed very rare and in my opinion we should not add this one yet. Probably it will establish itself in the next years and then we can talk about it again.
Comment
On second thought, I think that we should NOT add 200m and 4x400m. The reason is that these disciplines are so rarely done, that many riders in the world don't have a chance to perform in them. That would create an unequal playing field, e.g. the 200m record will most likely be owned by someone near Switzerland.
Comment
I think by recognizing or not recognizing world records in certain disciplines, we also control a little bit which disciplines are held at competitions.
Even if this influence is perhaps only a small one, we should keep in mind that it can exist.
My very personal view is that the IUF as a world federation represents unicycling as a competitive sport and therefore also determines which disciplines are officially recognised competitive disciplines. And yes, in my opinion some disciplines should also be deleted from the rulebook, because they don't fit to competitive unicycling - but that's something else...
As a representative of a competitive sport, I think the IUF should only keep world records in officially recognized competitive disciplines (For world records that have nothing to do with unicycling as a competitive sport, in my opinion Guinness is the more suitable contact).
The fact that a discipline is rarely done is no reason for me not to add it to the WRG. For me the inclusion is rather the statement: We see this discipline as a suitable competition discipline. Everyone who organizes a competition is free to offer this discipline.
Comment
Mostly agree with Jan.
Personally I feel for adding 200m. Indeed it is most popular in Switzerland, but every organizer can offer it easily in a normal track event. Even more it was an official track discipline on Eurocycle 2013 in Langenthal.
The only thing missing is that IUF Rulebook is mentioning 200m as a track discipline. If a discipline is commonly or rarely held in official competitions, IUF should recognize it. If IUF is not recognizing 200m as a competition discipline, the WR is in the best case a Guinness WR but then cannot be a IUF WR.
We as WR Committee can advise IUF Rulebook Committee to include it. Discussions for the new version of the Rulebook are ongoing, so it's the time now.
For 4x400m I agree it is to early to include in the record list, simply there is no record claim as far as I know.
Please have a look at the athletics world records. Some are for rarely organized disciplines. But I suppose these disciplines are at least officially recognized as a IAAF discipline.
https://www.iaaf.org/records/by-category/world-records
Comment
In the IUF Rulebook, section 2D.5, it is stated that convention hosts are free to add more racing events. I guess this makes a 200m race, if it is added at some "official" event, an official competition. That should not be a problem in recognising it as a World Record category.
Comment
I think even though there was no record claim for the 4 x 400 m relay so far, this is no reason not to include the discipline in the WRG. What are the sporting reasons for not recognizing a world record in a discipline that is described in the rulebook and that fully meets the requirements of competitive sport?
And as I have already written, I am of the opinion that only world records should be recognized that are also contained in the WRG.
I think there are more reasons not to take up the 200 m, because there are no explicit rules for this discipline in the Ruebook - for the 4 x 400 m relay there where already rules.
Comment
The question regarding 4 x 400 m is probably: do we think it's OK to have 'vacant' records? That is, record categories that we do acknowledge but that no-one has claimed.
Personally, I think this is OK.
Assuming we would agree on this, I agree with Jan that it doesn't make sense to exclude a discipline from the World Records list if the IUF Rulebook officially lists it as a valid discipline.
Comment
I think my opinion is clear, for me it would obviously be OK.
Comment
There are quite a few types of races described in the Rulebook, that are not included in the WGR.
And I think that we should certainly not include all of them. Examples (not to include) are Juggling unicycle race, and 50m Fast Backwards.
If we agree on this, it means that we do not want to include all disciplines that are described in the Rulebook.
Conversely, this paves the way to include disciplines such as 200m that are not explicitly described in the Rulebook.
My opinion used to be that we should recognise the same disciplines as the Rulebook, but now I think otherwise.
A consequence is that the WRG need an explicit list (or lists) of recognised records (as it is now, but with modified lists).
Back to the original topic: I would agree if we include all three in the WRG, so 200m, 4 x 100m and 4 x 400m. Part of the reason is that these distances are also recognised by IAAF, and regularly held at athletics competitions. So they are not "strange" distances.
Comment
I completely agree that the rules contain some "strange" disciplines which, in my opinion, have hardly anything to do with competitive sport.
And as I have already written above, I would also like to think about whether these disciplines should be deleted completely from the rulebook - especially if they have not been offered on official IUF events for years - presumably because they have nothing to do with a competitive sport (or they get an extra category "Fun Events"). But that would be an issue for the rulebook committee...
And I completely agree not to include these disciplines in the WRG now - if they stay in the rulebook permanently, we might have to think about it again.
Comment
In the proposal text, in two places the text states:
"No male and female category, only mixed."
In a way, the only category you would have is "male and female", which makes the rule somewhat ambiguous.
Also, I don't think that it should be required that the record is in possession of a m/f mixed team (the current record was set by an all-male team).
If this is agreed, I think it might be clearer to change into:
"No separate male or female categories."
But another thought: the top males are notably faster on the 100m. This almost excludes females from getting the 4x100 record if there is no separate female category. Therefore, it might be desirable to have separate male and female categories.
However, this would raise the question: what to do with mixed teams? Would it be fair to group them with males, or to have three categories (male, female, mixed)?
So maybe after all it is best to stick with one category after all? I'm not sure.
Comment
Your thoughts are right and I completely agree with you that it is not really meaningful to compare a purely male team with a purely female team and therefore separate categories would actually be meaningful. But the situation in unicycling is that the teams in the relay competitions usually consist of male and female athletes and it would not make sense to offer two or even three categories in one competition, just because then there would probably be very few teams in each category.
Therefore, in unicycling, I see a common category/mixed category is the solution that is most compatible with the circumstances in our sport. But of course it shouldn't be required that the record is in possession of a m/f mixed team. But you're right, "No separate male or female categories." is a better wording then.
Comment
Agree with you, Jan and Klaas!
Comment
You agree with me? but my last statement is "I'm not sure".
Meanwhile, I’ve given it some more thought.
Except for time trials World Records, there exists a competition discipline for each WR category.
We have said that in those cases, a WR must be set during competition (or immediately after).
Now, for relay competition, the IUF Rulebook states that “mixed male/female teams may be used”. The word “may” (as opposed to “must”) indicates, I think, that the IUF Rulebook does allow a competition organiser to offer all-male and all-female relay categories. In practice however, there is always a single category, which is mixed. And as Jan points out, this makes sense. (The rule does not mean that each team must have both genders, rather that gender is disregarded.)
Therefore, there is no incentive for female riders to form an all-female relay team, since they will be competing against male and mixed teams and have little chance of winning.
I think that if we would recognise an all-female relay WR category, this creates the incentive to enter an all-female team in the competition, even if the competition itself is mixed. Perhaps they may not win the competition, but they might still get the female relay WR.
Recognising only mixed relay WRs, in practice means recognising only all-male relay WRs.
Do we want such gender inequality to exist?
Comment
I agree with that. Recognizing a male and a female relay WR has nothing to do with the fact that in competitions often a mixed relay is offered, mostly because of practical reasons. Separate categories and WR can be an incentive for female teams. A female relay WR attempt can be perfectly done outside (after) a competition.
4x400 is clearly not a commonly held discipline. If it is defined in the Rulebook, is should be listed in the WRG, but not in the WR list as a vacant record, that makes no sense I think.
Comment
Erik, in itself agree with you about recognition of all-female WR for relay race.
But what would be the categories we recognise then? If we recognise only all-male and all-female, then what about the situation that a mixed team has been the fastest?
If we additionally add mixed gender as a third subcategory to solve the above, is then the requirement that it MUST be mixed? Isn't that a strange requirement for a team?
Or would we make a distinction between just two categories: all-female, and everything else (both mixed and all-male)? But that doesn't solve the gender-inequality thing.
In itself I'm in favour of adding an all-female WR for relay, but I'm not clear on how exactly we solve the above issues.
Comment
I still completely agree with you that it is not really meaningful to compare a purely male team with a purely female team and therefore separate categories would actually be meaningful. Hence, I can also make friends with recognizing an all-male and an all-female WR in the relay competitions.
But I think in this case we have to take into account the fact that relay teams in unicycling are usually mixed teams and also recognize a WR for mixed teams. In this category, of course, only those performances will be recognised that have been set by a team with at least one female and one male driver, i.e. that are really mixed.
(For me it isn't a strange requirement for a team - in swimming, for example, there are often mixed relay teams at competitions, which must consist of at least two female participants. And in the end it only serves the categorization in our case and does not represent an own competition category.)
To sum up: In my opinion it would be fairest to recognize all-male and all-female relay records and also to have a mixed realy record, which takes into account the situation of the mainly mixed relays when riding unicycles.
Comment
Regarding 4x100 relay I tend to the idea of a male and a female WR, which is common in most other sports.
In our sport and specifically this relay disciplines we could "allow" female riders in male category. In this way we don't need a mixed WR. The male WR can be performed by a mixed team. I'm now speaking about WR validation, I do not mean that organizers should offer male and female relay categories.
I don't know if there are other sports where female sporters can compete in male category, maybe chess.
Comment
Erik's suggestion of allowing female riders in the male record for Relay Race, is quite practical. Erik, do you have information on how athletics handles this issue?
Regardless, what I don't like about it is the asymmetrical approach. One or more female riders are allowed in a male team, but males are not allowed in a female team.
I think I like best the idea of having three gender categories for Relay races, i.e. all-male, all-female and mixed. This way, the rules are gender-neutral, and still recognise the performance difference between males and females.
And just to repeat what others said: this is only for categorisation of world records. There is absolutely no requirement to organise competitions using these three categories.
Comment
Are there any other opinions on the WR categorization for the relay competitions? Otherwise I would revise the proposal and add the three suggested categories.
In the discussion on Proposal 14, the short descriptions of the disciplines were addressed among other things... I think we should go for a consistent way throughout the WRG. So, what would be your preferred description? Here is an example for the 4x100m Sfaffel:
1. This is the fastest unicycle relay ride over a 4x100m distance.
2. This is the record for the IUF discipline 4x100m.
In my opinion, the wording of 2. would make clear that this is an official IUF discipline to be found in the rulebook and would indirectly refer again to the corresponding rules.
Comment
I have no other opinions on the WR categorisation for relay :-)
I also prefer option 2. Note that in 3B.6.1 in the Rulebook, it is written with spaces around the x, as in "4 x 100m". If we want to match the description of the rulebook, let's take that last step too.
Comment
You're right about the spaces, I will change that when I make a revision of the proposal.
But before I revise the proposal I would like to know what the others think about the description of the WR discipline. Since we should, however, have a uniform description for all disciplines and since this would also affect existing rules, I can make an extra proposal for this. Then I would leave the description in the corresponding proposal according to the previous rules and create a new proposal for changing all descriptions.
Comment
For "No male and female category, only mixed." does not read well for me. Would it not be simpler and read better if we say "no gender categories" or do we mean that this record is for hermaphrodites only? :-/
Comment
I agree. "No gender categories" describes what we mean and avoids ambiguity.
Comment
I take my comment back. "No gender categories" describes what the original proposal meant.
But we seem to be landing on three categories, i.e. all-male, all-female and mixed. In that case there ARE gender categories.
Comment
I have revised the proposal so that it should be clear now that we are in favour of the recognition of relay records in three gender categories.
It would be nice if even more committee members would comment on the point of the description of the disciplines, then we could bring the proposal to a vote soon.
Comment
"It would be nice if even more committee members would comment on the point of the description of the disciplines, then we could bring the proposal to a vote soon."
If we don't get other (and different) opinions soon, I think it is best to make descriptions like "This is the record fot the IUF discipline 4 x 100m" part of the proposal and bring it to a vote as such. If that proposal would pass, we can make another proposal to change the other descriptions thoughtout the WRG accordingly.
Comment
Okay, then we'll proceed like this. I'll update the proposal and change the description.
Comment
If there are no further remarks on the proposal in the next two days, I will put them to the vote.
Comment
We should define what means the gender category "mixed".
2 male and 2 female?
3 female and 1 male?
3 male and 1 female?
Comment
I agree with Ana, that's a very good point.
If we have a male and a female category I prefer to have 2 male and 2 female in the mixed category.
Comment
It seems logical to me that in the context of "three gender categories, i.e. all-male, all-female and mixed", mixed refers to a team with participants of mixed gender.
That implies that there must be at least one male and at least one female participant in such a team.
To answer your question explicitly, that means all three of your options count as "mixed".
Would it be necessary to define this in the WRG? I personally don't think so.
Also, to answer a question that was not asked: I don't think we should recognise separate world records for teams with
1 male and 2 females,
2 males and 2 females, and
3 males and 1 female,
respectively. They should be grouped together under "mixed".
Comment
I started typing my comment to Ana before Mirjam's comment appeared. I read Ana's comment differently.
The way Mirjam reads it, the question is: what combination(s) of males and females do we allow as mixed teams.
I think that the whole point to include a category for mixed teams (in addition to all-male and all-female) in the first place, is to reflect the practice in competitions. Most of the time, there are no gender categories in relay racing, and any male/female combination may occur. If we would, for world record recognition, restrict "mixed" to only two males and two females, we exclude 1+3 and 3+1 teams.
I read the proposal such that "mixed" comprises all combination of male and female participants in a team of four. That would be OK for me, but maybe not for everyone?
Comment
Yeah, first and foremost, the mixed category should reflect the practice in our competitions, where most of the time any male/female combination may occur because only a single category (mixed) is used. The mixed category should therefore be the category for all teams that are not all-male or all-female.
Would anyone disagree with that understanding of the mixed category?
Comment
I take the lack of participation at this point just as an approval for the proposal and assume that nobody disagrees with the wording and with the depicted understanding of the mixed category. And I hope that all committee members will take part in the vote.