No drafting between a standard and a unlimited competitor to certify a word standard record (Closed for comments)

Comments about this discussion:

Started 07 May 06:15

During a marathon or other races, drafting with a standard competitor behind unlimited competitor should not be allowed to certify a word (or national) standard record ?

Comment 07 May 06:57

Thank you for this thought.
For world records, this topic would belong in the IUF World Record Committee (WRC), not in the Rulebook.
I am involved in the WRC and will bring it up there.
Your timing is appropriate as the WRC is currently revising the World Record Guidelines.

BTW, the WRC, as the name suggests, is only about world records. National records are essentially up to the governing body of that nation's records. They could of course borrow from what the IUF prescribes for world records, if they want.

Comment 07 May 07:42

WRC may want to distingish between records set on track vs road, and with or without drafting.

Personally, for me WR means nothing but how fast one can travel on unicycle, and I am fine if the external conditions helps to rach that.
Very often we are asked the question, what is the maximum speed? Many measured, and it was always on some downhill sloped roads, back wind etc, and nobody cares, because the qeustion is simple for maximum speed. For me WR is more like interesting fact, rather than sport achievement.

Comment 07 May 08:24

I agree Maksym.

Comment 07 May 11:36

The spirit of this idea is correct, but the problem would be enforcement. Perhaps it would not be very difficult, as it would generally only be a tiny number of riders in any given race, but to enforce this rule someone would have to watch, as in riding nearby on a bike or something. That's a little messy...

Beyond that I agree with Klaas that it's a WR rule rather than a Road Racing rule, as it's legal in the race, but not for setting a new record.

Comment 07 May 18:07

A road race record allows drafting, as opposed to the time trial records where no drafting is allowed.

I am against the idea of limiting drafting to only riders of the same class, as it would be both difficult to enforce and disruptive to the racers. Are we also going to limit drafting to riders of the same gender only?

Comment 07 May 18:20

A "free distance" race that's not a TT should allow anyone to draft anyone. Any other approach would likely be unenforceable. And of course if it's a TT there should be no drafting allowed at all, if that's the rule. That will also be hard to enforce over any long route.

For people that want to try for (unpaced) world records in one of these races, there's no really "clean" way to do it unless they can have a third party (one or more) to follow along during the race and be willing to certify that no drafting occurred. Plus it would have to meet all the other requirements of the WR Committee.

Comment 07 May 18:36

This discussion is about the Competition Rulebook. For all I know, in competition drafting is allowed. If anyone would disagree with that, we would have a viable subject to discuss here.

To what degree drafting should be allowed or not for World Records, is a subject for the World Record Committee. It doesn't need to be discussed here.