Divisions
Gender categories
For team events the gender categories are defined as follows
| Category | Definition |
|---|---|
| Female gender | all female |
| Male gender | all male |
| Mixed gender | at least one male and one female |
| Any gender | any combination |
Please refer to the current IJRU gender policy for guidelines on gender categories.
All single-participant events have a female gender category and a male gender category.
Except as noted below, all team events have a female, male and mixed gender category. In the mixed category, at least one female and one male athlete must compete in each event the team competes in. Failing to fulfil this criterion will disqualify the team from the gender category and if applicable, any overall they participate in with an invalid configuration.
The Show Competition, as well as all DDC events, are competed in an "any gender" category, with no requirement on the gender of the athletes. A team may consist of athletes of one gender only or of athletes of different genders.
Age groups
Ages are determined based on the athlete’s age as of December 31 in the year of the competition. The competitors will be entered at their age as of this date. Ages will be verified against government issued documents during accreditation.
Category entry number requirements
There must be 4 or more entries from 2 or more sport nationalities in a competition event gender and age category for the competition event to be competed in that gender and age category. If a competition event fails to meet this requirement for a gender and age category, it will be combined or cross-ranked. It is up to the event organiser to decide which method or methods will be used.
For the IJRU world championships series, only combining will be used.
As a first step, if the competition has more than one age category (such as the Open Tournament in the IJRU world championships series) the competition event will be combined with the next older age group, if there are no older age groups it will instead be combined into the next younger age group. If there are multiple gender and age categories that does not fulfil the requirement for one competition event, start with the youngest competition event that does not fulfil the requirement.
If the competition event still does not fulfil the requirement after combining age groups, or if the competition only has one age group (such as the Senior Competition in the IJRU world championships series), the competition event will be combined or cross ranked with another gender category in the same age group. If the competition event has already been combined with another age group and the other gender category has not, the competition event is combined or cross ranked with the age group of the other gender category which matches (or if also combined, contains) the oldest original age group in the combined competition event. The preferences of combining or cross-ranking gender categories are, in order:
- Female → Mixed
- Mixed → Male
- Male → Mixed
If it's not possible to create a combined or cross ranked category fulfilling the requirements for a competition event, that competition event will not be competed for the affected gender and age categories.
If a gender category due to withdrawals or other factors no longer fulfils the required number of entries and sport nationalities during a competition, the gender category should be combined or cross ranked.
The event organiser needs to decide if combining and/or cross ranking will be used, and in what order.
If both combining and cross ranking are used, it's recommended to first combine any gender categories that do not fulfil the requirements first, and only then use cross ranking if the requirements is still not fulfilled for the combined category. If there's only one category that does not fulfil the requirement it's recommended to use cross-ranking.
The event organiser might also want to update the requirement "4 or more entries from 2 or more sport nationalities" for national events, for example to "4 or more entries from 2 or more clubs"
The event organiser can also choose that combining and/or cross ranking will only happen before the event, and not during the event if a category no longer fulfils the required number of entries and sport nationalities.
Combining entries
Two or more gender categories will be combined and ranked together, and rank will be awarded across all of the competitors in the new combined gender category.
Cross-ranking entries
If one gender category has enough competitors to compete but another one does not, the larger gender category is ranked and awarded as normal, but the smaller gender category is ranked combined against the larger group and only competitors that place against the combined ranked entries will be awarded. The combining to create the cross-rank is done once for the whole category, not once for every entry.
Example
If the Male gender category has the following results for a Single Rope Speed Sprint Event
| Participant | Country | Score |
|---|---|---|
| A | Iceland | 85 |
| B | Greenland | 84 |
| C | Iceland | 76 |
It needs to be cross-ranked, since it has fewer than 4 entries, despite having 2 countries.
The Mixed gender category it will be cross-ranked against has the following results
| Participant | Country | Score | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| D | Antarctica | 90 | 1 |
| E | Iceland | 83 | 2 |
| F | Greenland | 76 | 3 |
| G | Madagascar | 75 | 4 |
They would be combined and ranked to determine the cross-rank for the Male gender category as follows
| Category | Participant | Country | Score | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
X | D | Antarctica | 90 | 1 |
M | A | Iceland | 85 | 2 |
M | B | Greenland | 84 | 3 |
X | E | Iceland | 83 | 4 |
X | F | Greenland | 76 | 5 |
M | C | Iceland | 76 | 5 |
X | G | Madagascar | 75 | 7 |
And the following medals would be awarded:
- Mixed
- 1st: D - Antarctica
- 2nd: E - Iceland
- 3rd: F - Greenland
- Male
- 2nd: A - Iceland
- 3rd: B - Greenland
Team composition
A team competing in a team overall may consist of a maximum of one athlete more than the competition event that requires most athletes in that overall requires. All athletes on the team must compete in at least one of the competition events that make up the overall each.
An athlete may only compete in one overall team per overall type.
For entries into individual competition events the team may consist of the number of athletes the event requires.
All athletes in a team must have the same sport nationality.
The requirement for athletes to have the same sport nationality can be waived by the event organiser.