Dear unicycling community,

There have been difficult past few years. The Covid 19 took a great impact on the work of Federation, mostly by freezing our activities due to uncertainty of the future. We are gladly after another successful Unicon, and Covid is not an excuse anymore, but in this time the composition of IUF Board has dramatically changed. We are missing experienced IUF board members and in the close future we expect another few directors to leave.

We all are busy individuals and sparing a time for Federation is often not easy. There is plenty work to be done, for what we need more hands, clever heads and understanding of community needs.

Every two years we used to have elections for the IUF executive board and as always, we ask around if some of you are interested in becoming a Board member.

You might ask yourself what it means to be a Board member, so here is a short explanation of what we do.

The main tasks of the IUF are running the rulebook committee, developing the IUF software tools, hunting for possible upcoming Unicon hosts, negotiating with them to secure a good level of organization for all of you, listening to the different interest of all unicycling nations / streaming’s, developing our sport in other countries and many more small things that come around the corner. As we are a global team, all of this must be coordinated online and during virtual meetings we hold every 1 or 2 months to discuss all running tasks in detail. It should also be mentioned that this position is 100% unpaid, you invest all your skill and time to support the unicycling world. All this can be a great fun but also very annoying sometimes, as usually no decision makes everybody happy ?

If you are interested in joining the board, send your application to contact@unicycling.org until the 31 of January 2023.

It should contain the following points:

• Name
• Age
• Country
• Disciplines
• Interests
• Uni events attended/organized
• Uni organization you are a part of
• Why you are good candidate

We are looking forward to your application. Once we received it, you will get an email from us to confirm the receipt of your application.

Best regards

Maksym Siegienczuk
IUF President

We are pleased to announce new IUF World Records.

IUF Slalom

Mathias Bracke from Belgium set a new IUF World Record in the discipline of IUF Slalom, with a time of 17.32 seconds performed during Einrad Cup Münsterland in Warendorf, Germany on September 10, 2022.

The former male World Record holder was Gert-Jan De Vleeschouwer, also from Belgium, who has held the record of 17.59 seconds since 2018.

30m Wheelwalk

Ryosuke Bansai from Japan set new IUF World Record in the discipline of 30 meter Wheelwalk with the time of 6.47 seconds, performed during Unicon 20 on 5 August 2022 in Grenoble, France.

The previous record was held by Yunsung Park from Korean Republic, with a time of 7.071 seconds, performed in 2016.

50m Onefoot

Misaki Uchida from Japan set new IUF World Record in the discipline of 50 Onefoot with the time of 7.22 seconds, performed during Unicon 20 on 5 August 2022 in Grenoble, France.

The previous record was held by Niklas Wojtek from Germany, with a time of 7.582 seconds, performed in 2016.

Congratulations to Mathias, Ryosuke and Misaki!

Currently, as reported by IUF World Record Committee there are another 3 pending records performed during Unicon 20.

IUF World Records are set in compliance of the IUF World Record Guidelines

Today, I have the honor and pleasure to introduce to you the new President of the IUF: congratulations Maksym Siegieńczuk!

We are all happy that Maksym decided to run for the office; in our meeting today he was elected unanimously.

As my time as the president is now coming to an end, I would like to thank you all today. It was always an honor for me to be your president, the unicycling community was and is something special. Maintaining this spirit has always been a special concern for me and I am sure that Maksym will continue the office in this sense. Don’t worry, he still has many new ideas in his quiver as well!

I am happy to hand over the office into good hands and will now slowly but surely withdraw myself from the active work and only take care of some smaller projects of the heart. I could also include a long list of names who have made my time a great one here, but as you’ll always forget someone this way anyway 😊 I’ll make it short: Thank you unicycling community for so many wonderful years!!!

However, I would also like to take this opportunity to look for new board members. If you could imagine to actively work in the IUF Board, you can apply now. To do so, send your application and a statement on why you would like to be a member of the board to contact@unicycling.org until January 15th. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me or any other board member. Due to our international structure however, it would be extremely helpful if you had a relatively good command of English at least. The work in the board can sometimes be tough and tedious and is about bureaucratic things every now and then, but you can also move a lot and bring our sport forward. If this appeals to you, apply now!

Finally, I wish you all a peaceful and reflective holiday season. 2020 has been a difficult year for everyone, everyone had to limit themselves socially a lot, some had to accept strong financial losses and some even lost relatives and/or friends, making it a truly horrible year.

In the unicycling community however, I could see that even in this situation, we tried to get through the year together, stay positive and work on great projects for which I would like to express my respect and gratitude. I am confident that in 2021, we can slowly but surely return to our normal lives and even enjoy the first small events in summer. And in 2022, we can finally celebrate the long awaited Unicon 20 together exactly the way we all wish to celebrate it.

Goodbye and blessed holidays from my side and all the best Maksym

UNICON 20 newsletter – #FLAHSNEWS

Hello to all Unicon 20 attendees, We hope this message finds you safe and healthy. Please continue to take care of yourself and your loved ones. We would like to inform you that due to the developments regarding Covid-19, Unicon 20 will not be held as planned from 22-July to 2-August, 2020 in Grenoble, France. The decision to postpone to the summer of 2021 is the most reasonable solution, and more suited to this exceptional situation. Due to the extent of the COVID-19 pandemic, our organization team has worked with the IUF board and the Union Nationale Sportive Léo Lagrange about the best course of action. We have also sought the views of nine national federations who represent the majority of the registrants. These federations expressed support and preference for the postponement of Unicon 20 to the summer of 2021. We are currently working to obtain the agreements and venues for Unicon to take place in the summer of 2021 in Grenoble, France. We will inform you as soon as possible about the alternatives available regarding registrations received to date. In the meantime, we encourage you to cancel your travel arrangements (flights, trains, etc) and any private lodging arrangements you have made. If you have made lodging arrangements through Unicon 20, we are working with our partners and will share more details soon.  Watch for upcoming announcements. We hope you continue to stay safe and healthy, and we will see you in 2021. Unicon 20 Organising Team

It’s been a while since our last update about Unicon 20 – we would have loved to send you an update earlier, but we also didn’t want to push rumors. However, now we are very glad to finally announce the official location for Unicon 20! 🙂

Unicon 20 will take place in Summer 2020 in Grenoble, France, and will be hosted by the CNM and UNSLL. We are already looking forward to another amazing Unicon with all of you and would also like to thank everyone working hard to organize the event. Further information will follow soon!

Dear unicycling community,

We hope you all arrived in 2019 well and would like to wish you all the best for this new year!

Every two years we also have elections for the IUF executive board and as always, we ask around if some of you are interested in becoming a Board member. 

You might ask yourself what it means to be a Board member, so here is a short explanation of what we do.

The main tasks of the IUF are running the rulebook committee, developing the IUF software tools, hunting for possible upcoming Unicon hosts, negotiating with them to secure a good level of organization for all of you, listening to the different interest of all unicycling nations / streaming’s, developing our sport in other countries and many more small things that come around the corner. As we are a global team, all of this must be coordinated online and during virtual meetings we hold every 1 or 2 months to discuss all running tasks in detail. It should also be mentioned that this position is 100% unpaid, you invest all your skill and time to support the unicycling world. All this can be a great fun but also very annoying sometimes, as usually no decision makes everybody happy ?

If you still think that are interested in joining the board, send your application to election@unicycling.org until the first of March.

It should contain the following points:

• Name
• Age
• Country
• Disciplines
• Interests
• Uni events attended/organized
• Uni organization you are a part of
• Why you are good candidate

We are looking forward to your application. Once we received it, you will get an email from us to confirm the receipt of your application.

Best regards

Olaf Schlote
IUF President

Hello unicyclists!

Less than 9 months are left until ECU 2019!

As last year, the European Unicycling Championships will be held in the Netherlands, in Sittard-Geleen to be precise. It will take place from 25^th of July until 4^th of August 2019. Alwin Jacobs and the core team are working hard every day to make this great event possible.

A lot of things stay the same as last year, for example:

• Swiss Timing team, a great location for track racing and IUF Slalom
• Tom Dumoulin bike park for 10k
• Wood15 for Urban events
• Stadtsportshaal for Basket
• location for muni
• Fitland area for registration, freestyle, cyclocross,…
• lodging in Fitland

We have also made some changes and improvements:

• Marathon will take place on the amazing Zolder race circuit
• Hockey moves to the sports hall in the City Resort (Fitland)
• The camper area is a little bit further away than last time but it will allow more than 50 campers.

We are very happy to welcome a lot of competitors (and non-competitors) in the Netherlands next year! Also non-european competitors are welcome to register and participate in the competitions. Be aware that as a non-european competitor you cannot get into a final, however you will get age group medals!

For more information please check out our website: www.ecu2019.eu

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us via info@ecunicycling.eu

See you soon in Sittard-Geleen!

This is an update for the unicycling community on the current status of the proposed Unicon 2020 location in Brixen, Italy. As of September 1, 2018, the location for Unicon 2020 is still not finalized. The board is providing this update in order to increase the transparency of its internal actions.

At the IUF meeting at Unicon19 in Ansan, South Korea, the board members present—Jim Sowers, Ken Looi, Emile Mathieu, and Jenni Rinker—announced the IUF had originally received several bids but at present had only one viable bid for a Unicon 2020 location. This bid was made for Brixen/Bressanone, in Italy.

Over the years, the number of disciplines and competitions that constitute Unicon has grown substantially. Likewise, the demands on the hosts have also increased. As we have learned from mistakes and shortcoming in past Unicons, and given the importance of insuring a quality event that is a “world championship”, the IUF has formalized the requirements for hosting a Unicon. The IUF also has put in place a requirement that it is able to provide input to the event and that the hosts will be accountable to the IUF. The objective of this requirement is to ensure that Unicon does, in fact, meet the quality expectations of the participants.

Because we have added these requirements, the process for negotiating and finalizing an understanding between the hosts and IUF is moving more slowly than it has in the past. There is a cost to trying to raise the standard.

The IUF board has met weekly since Unicon19 and is working diligently to finalize an agreement with the proposed hosts that will ensure the quality of Unicon 2020. It is our hope that these discussions will be resolved quickly, but we cannot give an exact timeline as to when a final decision will be in place. We will post further updates on the status of Unicon 2020 as it develops.

Beside the already announced new World Records, Niklas Wojtek from Germany set a new World Record in 100 and 200 meter Track Race.

The 100m world record was set in 2006 during the UNICON XIIV in Langenthal, Switzerland (12.54 sec). He set a new world record for the 100m at 12.473 seconds.
The 200m world record was set in 2017 during the race competition in Nottwil, Switzerland (25.662 sec). He set a new world record for the 200m at 25.489 seconds.

Congratulation Niklas, especially for braking the 12 years old 100m World Record done by Seisuke Kobayashi (Japan).

Both World Records was set in Nottwil, Switzerland on the 9th and 10th of June 2018

Congratulations to Lisa Maria Hanny and Gert Jan de Vleeschouwer!!!

Lisa, who is keeping the existing record already, set a new World record in Long jumps 2 times inner 1 week. She jump 3,30 meter in Nottwil, Switzerland on the 9th of June and then finaly 3,35 meter in Warendorf, Germany while the German Championships. Jan beat his own World record in IUF Slalom with 17,59 seconds by 0,01 second in Nottwill, Switzerland.

There are some rumors that 100 and 200 meter World records was also set to a new level in Nottwil but we are still waiting for the final confirmation. The 100 meter record was not broken since 2006.