You have probably seen them in the streets of Grenoble, balancing on a one-wheeled bicycle: unicycle enthusiasts have met in the capital of the Alps to the 20th edition of the world championship. The events began on Tuesday July 26 and will extend until next Saturday (August 6) at Paul Mistral Park and Halle Clémenceau, among others. And there is something for everyone: 35 disciplines, 10km, marathon but also unicycle basketball, long jump, freestyle or cross-country.
This is the first time the event has taken place in France. And the choice of Grenoble is not due to chance: “The Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region has a third of the unicycle clubs in France (10 out of the 30 existing), we are very active in Grenoble, where there is a club. And then we are also very present in the mountains“, explains François Wurmser, Director of Unicon 20. Moreover, within the Unicon village, on the speed ring, an exhibition retraces the history of Thierry Bouché, “a Grenoblois who had created an all-terrain unicycle club in the 1990s, he was the first to have descended the Moucherotte on a unicycle, he is one of the pioneers of the discipline and he is from Grenoble“.
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In total, about 1,400 unicycle lovers met in Grenoble, from all over the world. The largest delegation is Germany (400 nationals). But there are 35 nationalities. Like Jim, from California, with a tattoo on his arm: “It’s a unicycle but the wheel is a basketball because I love mono-basketball. I also do unicycle marathons. but I’m getting old, I just turned 60, my knees aren’t very good anymore. I do a bit of freestyle too, but I’m not very good at it.“. A total of 35 disciplines are offered, from team sports, to endurance and off-road.
An initiation workshop available every day
– Théo Hetsch
Expert or beginner, everyone is invited to participate. There is also every day, from 3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., a unicycle initiation workshop. Barriers are installed to help gain support at the start, before launching “without hands” for the most seasoned. Our reporter Théo Hetsch lent himself to the exercise:
“Few of us do this activity, so we help the new ones. It’s really a strong community, because it deserves to ride a unicycle. So all the people who are there are respected, whatever their level“; says Loïc Guifant, PE teacher and unicycle enthusiast for 30 years. And this spirit attracts, the discipline is developing: “Today there are 600 members in France, we see a constant increase in followers“, welcomes François Wurmser.
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