Junior Champions (Closed for comments)
Comments about this discussion:
Started
To encourage young riders, we would like to give 'Junior Champion' Titles to the best rider younger than 15 years.
We think, that the Champion should be the best of all, not the best senior rider.
Otherwise we would have only junior champions and senior champions and no real=overall champion.
Junior riders should be allowed to start in overall finals.
Do you agree?
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I agree in the structure you propose. Now it needs to be more specific by event. Do you propose a Junior champion for every event, combined events, both or only some?
With the Expert/Jr. Expert breakdown of Freestyle, it has always been structured where younger riders could compete with the "old people" for the overall title, though in that system does require them to choose; it isn't structured to allow 0-14 riders to win the Junior title if they compete in the Expert group. Figuring a way around that would be more challenging due to the nature of Freestyle judging.
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Last time we delete the title "junior" or "age group" World Champion as it confuses the media totaly. I think for the most or all disciplines it is well organized as it is. To make Junior Champions we would need a seperate Junior category which means a lot of more needed time. As John point out, A rider who become then Junior champion cant become Champion and if he would be Champion (the fastest/best), why should he become Junior Champion also?
There are Junior Champions in other SPorts but they also have Junior Championships then. We have a World Championship where riders with every age can compete (strange enough). A step to have Junior Champions would mean a big change in the complete competition Structure.
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I agree with Olaf. Either we separate Junior world championships and adult world championship (as in athletics for example) or we just leave it the way it is now.
It is already complicated enough (with age group and overall champions) and I think if we separate the Juniors from the adults during the same competition it would be even more confusing...
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I agree.
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What can be done, is to clearly define who becomes champion and then its up to the competition to define what kind of champion that is. In case of Unicon these will be World Champignons, in case of a national championship they will become national champions. So a junior world championship can give the junior world champion title.
However, that would need an IUF committee which keeps track of those titles, anyway each competition could give away national, world or king-of-the-world-champion.
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Thomas wrote: So a junior world championship can give the junior world champion title.
My comment: that would be true, except that there is no such event as Junior World Championships (in unicycling), as also Mirjam pointed out.
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As Klaas points out, there is no such thing as a Junior World Championship. Anyone want to make a Jr. version of Unicon? Probably not in the next few years. So the question is, until such a (separate) championship exists, do we want to recognize top Junior riders at Unicon?
Proudly, we are not like other sports. Our World Championships offers competition for *ALL* ages. This is a great thing. In the past, we have had Junior titles in Freestyle, which I believe were always optional. For Freestyle, riders would have to decide in advance if they wanted to compete directly with other juniors, or in the regular Expert group, since judging has to be done by specific group. But for many other events, such as racing, time tells the winner so it could work more easily.
If a junior person is the overall winner, they win both titles. Otherwise there would be two separate awards.
I believe this should be an optional thing, but here we could figure out guidelines for how to do it if it's to be done.
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1. I'm personally against any kind of title or recognition that will encourage competition in-between young riders. We should be very carefully in awarding young riders as it can heavily impact the way young riders evolve in the sport, as they could see it as a competition very early in their development, instead of seeing it as a great sport, a way to develop themselves and a great community. Competitive mentality should come later in their development, I will vote against this proposition.
2. Also, a junior cannot be a champion, it's a junior athlete, thus not a champion in the meaning that he is the best in his discipline. A junior can be the best in his group age, but would be by definition not has good asthe riders older than him, making him NOT a champion.
3. We already reward the best in each age groups, no need to divide age groups in additional grouping and award those new grouping. If we award Juniors, we will have to award Veterans and so on...
B.
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I agree to Benoit and from my own experience with my doughter and other kids in the age from 7 to 14 years they soon get board from our mountain of medails and they don't feel good with them, they more see them as a pointless something. To be on the Podium in the top three of the discipline is what male them proud and feel good, to be 1, out of 3 or 5 in soem age group means more or less nothing. Remembers me also to a german Trial and Downhill championship where Darja end with Junior and all over Title for Trials and Downhill which feels for her like she stole the Junior title from some other as she get it just because she was 14. Even the host was not happy but what should he decide as she was the best Junior and the best all over so it also wont make sense to dont award her both as both titles exist. Also to give the junior title to the second best Junior feels wrong as this rider was not the best Junior. For me a good sample that it is difficult and maybe pointless beside form the arguments Benoit state.
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What Olaf describes above is only true for the very talented young riders, I think. For the majority of "normally-talented" riders, my experience both at Unicon and in our Dutch Nationals, is that most kids are proud to win an age group medal. I have noticed that riders who routinely win lots of medals, not only find them "boring", but sometimes even feel embarrassed taking away the medals from others in their age group.
But this is totally different for expert medals. A 12-year-old boy whom I know is a good example of this. He is almost embarrassed at winning age group medals. But when he got an expert medal at Unicon in Canada, he was VERY proud. Surely this was his most valuable medal ever!
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Maybe I describe it a bit drastic but as you described there is a huge difference for a kid to win a agegroup medal or to win a expert medal. I mainly see that inflation of titles is not the right way, especially as we talk about a World Champion Title here. We actualyl allowed the germans to add junior champions for their nationals as they asked for it based on a mountain of U15 riders. But a World Championship is different and a point where we still have nearly no limits to compete there and allow to start for every age so at least the Titles should mean something and to be a World Champion means a lot while a junior World Champion is the first step down and we delete all those "lower" World Champion titles last tiem in the rulebook committee to give full honor to the World Champions as they deserve it.
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I think that there should only be Junior Champions in categories where people choose to be a Junior Expert (like Freestyle, Street, and Flat currently). I don't think that a person should be able to be the Overall Champion and a Junior Champion, it's redundant.
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I agree with Benoit and would vote against it.
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My question was:
when Junior titles are given (as the IUF allowed for the next german track championship), is it ok to exclude juniors from finals (as it is done there)?
I think this is not fair, as it might prohibit the best from becoming overall champion.
If you think this is not fair, what solution do you suggest:
a) no junior titles at all
b) juniors that are also best overall can start in both finals and win both titles
c) juniors can choose between junior final and overall final
d) anything else?
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We allow it for german race track comp as they do the system how to award them by themself. Following the discussion I think it looks like nobody want to invent it as a general standard for the IUF rules. If there are junior titles, I see no reason to double award those riders. This is why they typicaly only possible if you have a clean junior championship or like in Freestyle and FLat, when you have a seperate Junior competition. Those winners can't become Expert champion also.
In case of races the 6 fastest (or 8 or 4 , depends on the availiable lanes) reach the finals, if you have junior finals also, the 6 fastest juniors has to go for those while those juniors that are in the fastest all over are already in the finals so they can't compete again in the junior finals. You can die only one dead ;)
So in generall for the rulebook: no Junior titles at all (expect from the existing ones)
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Petra brings up a real problem that arises from awarding Junior titles. To me this is one more argument to ONLY award Junior titles for disciplines in which the Junior award system is completely separate from the award system for non-Juniors (such as Flatland under IUF rules). I don't know why the Germans are not satisfied with giving out age group medals, and want to award Junior titles in their track race competition. But I don't think that this is an issue we have to solve for the IUF rulebook.
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Exactly
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I agree with Benoit, we should not invent an extra title for 2 age groups ( 11-12 and 13-14) because age group 0-10 can not reach the finals, because of the different wheel sizes, distances... .
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Reminder: riders of any age can use 24" wheels. If they are too small to fit on them, Junior Champion is realistically beyond their grasp anyway. Beyond that, I am neutral on the Juniors thing; I'd prefer to leave it to hosts to decide what awards they want to do beyond the required ones. We can provide guidance for doing optional types of awards, but I would not recommend making it mandatory.
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I agree. The host is always allowed to add additional awards, which is why the IUF approved the change for the German Track Championship. I don't think this needs to be added to the rulebook.
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If the host can always add additional awards, they can add Junior Champion awards at their discretion. Then why would the IUF (have to) approve such a change for the German Track Championship?
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They didn't really have to ask. The Germans just like to make sure that everything is official.
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As most sports have junior titles, I think we should make them possible and ensure, that they are given fairly.
There is no value in an overall champion title, that is won only because juniors were excluded, and the champion would feel bad with this undeserved title.
And the junior champion would feel bad with a worthless title, if he won it only, because the best rider competed in the overall class and could practically not win the deserved junior title.
When young riders are the best overall, they deserve to win both the junior and the overall title.
I suggest the following rule:
The host can decide to award junior titles for riders younger than 15 years, when there are more than 6 starters in this discipline. If junior titles are awarded, the young riders must get a fair chance to compete in junior and overall competition.
What do you think about it?
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Petra,
I really don't understand why that rule needs to be added to the rulebook. In any age-group-based event, it is already the case that everyone has the opportunity to compete towards the overall champion (within a category at least). In judged events where you can choose Jr. Expert, you are always to choose to compete in Expert instead, and can still compete towards the overall award. For events like Freestyle and Flatland, it is currently impossible to win both the junior award and the overall champion, but I don't see any possible solution here.
If a host chooses to add Junior champions for other events (like track), they are allowed to do so. However, this addition would not remove the overall champion. Thus any rider that made both junior and overall finals for a race should be allowed to compete in both. I see no need to add rules where they are not necessary. We already have enough rules as is.