We had a good crew at UNICON 22, the unicycle world championships in Steyr, Austria. Among 1100+ competitors, Berkeley had some stand-out performances. Most notably, six locals from our Tuesday night basketball game, including coach Kyle, played on the international Team Swish, finally managing to beat WOOM, the French four-time world champion, 63-56, to take home the first title for the mainland U.S. (Prior to 2009, the Puerto Rican team won a number of championships).
In individual results, Jimbo won an age group gold in the 10km Standard (38:34 on a 24″ unicycle), and got the age group bronze in several track events. Sarah took age group silvers at flatland and in track coasting. In addition to the basketball gold medal, Kostya won the age group bronze in the IUF Slalom. And, I won an age group gold in the MUni uphill. (My uphill time was faster than my downhill time, which is probably not a surprise to those who have ridden with me).
UNICON is a combined competition and convention, and our group also contributed on the convention side. Sarah led the presentation of the International Unicycle Federation Gender Committee report, which they’ve been working on for a couple of years now. It’s a sensitive subject, and the report was received pretty appreciatively. If you are interested in learning more about that effort or seeing the presentation deck, mail unicyclegendercommittee@gmail.com.
I helped organize an alleycat-style race we called the Unicat, where teams rode around Steyr finding locations and performing challenges at each one. It was a lot of fun! Many thanks to Kilian and Ani for help putting that together.
The next UNICON will be in 2028; the location isn’t set yet, but it’s sure to be another amazing event. Many thanks to the Austrian organizers and the IUF for all the work that went into it.