[High Jump] Protective gear
This discussion has an associated proposal. View Proposal Details here.Comments about this discussion:
Started
Hi,
Every single year there are always a lot of riders with complaints about the mendatory protective gear for high jump.
The current rulebook lists that all riders must be wearing these protective gears in order to compete:
-helmet
-gloves
-knee pads
Considering high jump is a hop done from flat ground, back to flat ground, I do not understand why all this equipment would be mandatory. While we don't require any protective gear for flatland, why should we for high jump?
Knee pads:
-reduce the amplitude of movement
-reduce the comfort of rider
-additionnal weight
Gloves:
-Reduce the feeling of the handle or seat
-Reduce the grip on the handle or seat
helmet:
-additionnal weight
-comfort
We have to keep in mind here that the riders are trying to achieve their personal best, or even the world's. Every centimeter counts. I also want to add most riders don't usually ride with gloves, and adding them only for competitions really makes it weird and different and the rider has to adapt.
p.s. I am only creating a conversaiton here for HIGH jump and not LONG jump... We have to understand high jump and long jump are fundamentaly different, one requires high speed, the other does not.
-Emile
Comment
I would recomend Helmet and shinguards, Gloves and Kneepads are realy useless in Highjump. I think the extra wheight of a Helmet don't matter a lot and there are not only static hops, rolling hop also works for 1 meter and more. Shinguards can protect a rider from bad shin injury by his pinned metal pedals and they are not reduce the comfort like knee pads do.
Comment
I agree with Olaf on the minimums. Yes we understand that riding with protective gear adds weight and bulk to your body. What riders must understand is that large competitions are very expensive and complex things to put together. They require insurance, risk, and not just large sums of money but large amounts of cooperation between municipalities and organizations that they know nothing about. Your safety gear is also there to protect the organizers. The organizers "own" the event, and must protect themselves from lawsuit just as much as, if not more, than they protect you.
On to the physics of why safety gear makes more sense for these two events than most others. Long Jump is speed plus jumping/landing. High Jump is height plus landing. If you read liability insurance policies that cover sports or physical activities, such as elementary school physical education, once you elevate a person from ground level, the danger level (cost/liability) goes up. Physics does the rest. Height increases landing impact just as speed does.
For helmets, I just read a great quote in the manual for my wife's new Lightning P-38 recumbent bike:
"WEAR A HELMET! If your head is worth less than $50 (the price of a good helmet); you don't need one."
Now ask yourself why the maker of a bicycle needs to tell you this? To protect themselves from liability. Things can go wrong. One lawsuit can destroy an organization.
Comment
I can't comment for other event organizers, but in the case of Unicon 17, held in what seems like the worst territory in regards to insurance policies and other ridiculous administrative karp, safety gear was a non-issue for all of our partners. This may be because our insurance policy is provided by a biking federation, which covers BMX, mountain biking, road racing, cyclocross, and so on, which are all more "extreme" than unicycling. Or it may also be that way because unicycling in Québec is still in a gray area and nobody at an insurance company has thought of it as an extreme sport. It doesn't seem like we have fallen in the I-don't-know-this-activity-so-I-will-consider-it-extreme scenario. The IUF Rulebook was always more restrictive than what location managers were asking us.
To get back on subject, my point is that I don't think the Rulebook should worry too much about legally protecting event organizers to the detriment of riders' capabilities. I think the Rulebook should only provide the minimum safety gear required for a particular discipline based on the knowledge of the sport of everyone taking part in this current process. The rest should be up to an event organizer, usually guided by the requirements of a third party organization, be it municipality, government, facility, etc. I consider that this varies too much from country to country to be defined here.
How to define "the minimum safety gear required for a particular discipline"? I don't know, but I would say gear that would protect against fatal injuries. Which, in all the situations I can think of, can be reduced to a helmet. Therefore, in the case of High Jump, I would personally recommend only a helmet.
Comment
Good comments from Hugo, who must know very well what event organizers must go through to make these competitions happen. His question: Should these rules be the place where the "final" decisions on safety gear are made, or should those be determined based on the location of a competition, and the laws and liability climate of that location? There's something to be said for that.
As a past IUF Board member, I am inclined to not leave it to local organizers, as they have a million things to worry about, and omitting to make a specific ruling on safety gear can not only come back to bite them, but it leaves the IUF Board at risk as well. What I recommend is that the IUF Board, through us (the rule-makers) set a minimum required safety gear standard and apply it equally around the world.
That would lead to the question of what we consider "necessary" and what is maybe more for cosmetic purposes? For example, in regular Track racing, kneepads can save a lot of blood from being shed, but are unlikely to prevent much in the way of more serious injury. We have had them since the early days, because Track is more of a family event, with lots of kids. Sometimes the press goes for gore, and we'd rather deny that to them. At least when it's on our kids. On gonzo downhillers and Trials experts, it's a lot more acceptible, but even such statements can come back to bite us in the future. We should play it on the safe side, anywhere that we're unsure about the "necessary" level. There will always be a point of tension from riders, who don't care about scars and blood, and organizers, who maybe would rather not see those things in their competitions.
For High Jump, helmets are absolutely necessary, and shin protection is a (very) good idea. In other words, if riders don't mind chewing up their shins in front of a large crowd of people and cameras, we might be okay with that. But for riders that don't care about concussions or more serious brain injuries, we're not okay with that. Be stupid on your own, but show some respect for your brain at IUF events. :-)
Comment
I support Hugo: helmets required, shinguard heavily recommended, knee-pads and gloves at the rider's preference.
Comment
Thanks for the reminder about the shinguard suggestion. I updated the proposal to reflect this.
Comment
I urge all of you to settle on a single set of safety gear for all the Jumps. Doing otherwise will lead to much confusion, not only by riders but by our typically under-trained secondary officials. Safety gear should be simple. I'd hope for us to reach agreement on a set that's also the same for Trials and Street as well.
This does not mean riders will complain less. Riders have complained about wearing safety gear since before day one (1989 for the USA), and they will continue to do so as long as we tell them what to wear. Get used to the complaints!
If it were to be the same gear for all of those events, I would vote for shoes, helmet, gloves and the "shin and/or knee" thing we've discussed elsewhere. But whatever you do, don't do different sets of safety gear for different jumps!
Comment
John, I absolutely disagree here. I think that the safety gear needed for the various events here are very different. I agree that just because a rider complains, it doesn't mean that we should change the safety gear rules. However, I don't see a need to force riders to wear gloves for high jump just because someone might fall riding fast in long jump.
Comment
John, I suggest you read the first post again where my arguments are listed as why high jump should not have gloves and pads and why long jump and high jump should be treated differently.
Comment
I have to agree with Scott and Emile on this one -- the "nature" of the jumps are completely different. Honestly, their only unifying theme is that they are both called "jump" and riders are trying to go the distance.
That being said, I understand the nature of your concern of increasing the confusion for officials and riders. However, I think this will be minimal. Even if that is not the case, it could easily be mitigated by designating someone as a "safety official" who will brief judges and riders on the gear for that event. They are not responsible for enforcing the rules, just making sure that the officials and riders are aware of the rules. This could be the event organizer, or someone else that is part of the Unicon staff that is responsible for telling officials and riders what the safety gear is for an event. Heck, I plan on attending Long Jump and High Jump (and Platform High Jump?), so I'd volunteer to be that person if need be.
Comment
Emile, I respectively suggest that you read my posts again also, in case that will change your point of view. And while you're at it, attend 30+ National and International championships, and also read up on history of safety gear discussion, vs. real-world results, since 1989. Believe me, there's been a lot of it; mostly repetitive! And after all that, safety gear rules have been notoriously poorly enforced in many instances since 1989. Especially for the "non-traditional" events that have less history behind them. Adding more text to the Rulebook has had no direct improvement on this. Top officials generally know the rules (generally), but the hard-working volunteers that are actually looking at the safety gear and doing the grunt work, usually aren't rules experts.
However, this sloppiness on making sure people are wearing what we require greatly increases the risk of dire danger to the IUF and convention organizers in the event of a lawsuit. Truthfully, If a rider gets injured because they chose not to wear some certain safety gear, it was their choice. Unless it was a required piece of gear. We care about each rider, but we have to place greater care on ensuring out ability to continue having these events. This is why we have insurance. Losing a big lawsuit could bankrupt convention hosts, or even destroy the IUF. That's the major thing all this safety gear stuff is about.
Confusion, from safety gear rules that differ from two events being held right next to each other, will be a pain in the ass. The less amount of gear we require, the less of a pain it will be, but if we make different rules for those events, I promise you will have a lot of people showing up that have to go back and change what they're wearing. And possibly make people wait, or miss their opportunity to compete. People will whine and bitch about it, I promise! Keep it all the same.
If gloves only protect from abrasions/minor injuries, make them optional. This will make the glove requirement for track seem silly, but that's for another thread. Same for the other bits, except for helmets, which we really shouldn't mess with. Just keep it the same between the jumps events. For every piece of gear that's considered necessary for one event, it's not going to be harmful in the others.
Any arguments about physical limitations caused by safety gear are moot. They apply to every rider if they are required gear. Riders will be free to choose gloves with the best grip, knee protection with the greatest freedom of movement (if we choose to require them), and everything as light as they can find.
Comment
"gloves only protect from abrasions/minor injuries, make them optional"
Well you said it yourself. Knee and shin guards will also only protect from abrasion and minor injuries as well, so we're making them optional.
John, youre like a encyclopedia when it comes down to unicycling history and I truly respect that. Even though you have a lot of experience in more tradiotionnal events of unicycling, you seem to be off when it comes down to those newer disciplines, or a new way of functioning. So while you're at it, I greatly invite you to attend extreme unicycling competitions, events and gathering so you can gather some knowledge on how they work and the motivations of people attending such events.
P.s. Scott, could you add a font size option, sometimes the text weirdly goes big or really small.
Comment
Your past experience is great, but it doesn't mean you own the right answer all the time. And I certainly don't either, that's why we have these discussions with people from different horizons.
Comment
I stay at Hemlemt and shinguards fpr Highjump and I also agree that longjump is different and would more need Knee protection. Beside this and after thinking a lot about safty gear and all events I did / organize / observe / watch, I come to a feeling that mostly a paramedic was the needed protection and also it was always the worst to don't have one so i already post in the safty gear Flat/Street discussion that to add the need of a paramedic at the competition area is more needed then to much Safty gear.
All over I think Helmet + Shinguard has best options to pass as Proposal.
Also yes, font size option would be great or a Button to delete format as minimum.
Comment
The question of a paramedic and safety gear are mutually exclusive. Having medical help available is always a good thing, but it's not a substitute for whatever basic protection we choose to require. The safety gear we choose is also to protect the convention organizers and the IUF.
Emile, I would so love to attend more of today's extreme unicycling competitions! I wish some were closer. Aside from Unicon and the USA Nationals, I haven't been to much recently. I have had the priviledge to be at the first Muni race, the first Trials competition at a larger unicycle event, and the first Street competition. Also to my knowledge, I was also at the first High Jump and Long Jump competitions. The dimensions were very small! But bigger than your text. :-)
I also had a trouble with text size, after pasting content from the Rulebook. Only way I could figure out to fix it was to copy my text to a plain text file, delete the post, then paste it into a new one. Otherwise if you have some normal-sized text in the thread, it may copy after your wrontly-formatted text and you can continue from there.
Comment
John, from your latest post, I honestly don't know what your opinion is. Please to try write it in a sentence or two.
I'll try to fix the text size issue soon.