Challenge rules
Text version: 2026-10-11
NO PRIZE IS AWARDED DURING THE TEST PHASE
Sakalm is in a test phase. The ranking, the Bibs and the Goldies all work normally, but NO PRIZE IS AT STAKE and no award is given, to anyone, in any form.
As of today there is therefore no contest, no draw, and no game with any prize whatsoever.
These rules describe what will apply on the day prizes start. They are published in advance so that nobody discovers them at the moment of playing. On that day, the app will tell you, and will ask you to accept the new version of this text before letting you continue, since this change affects your rights.
Taking part in the test phase is entirely free. No subscription exists yet, and nothing can be bought in the app.
WHAT THIS IS, AND WHAT IT IS NOT
A challenge is won on performance. The winner is whoever finishes top of their group’s ranking, on the greatest distance or the greatest area depending on the mode played, not whoever a draw picks out. Chance plays no part at any moment in awarding the prize.
This point is not cosmetic: under French law, a game whose outcome depends on a performance is a contest, not a lottery. These are two very different regimes, and it is the contest regime that applies here.
ORGANISER
Sakalm, a French simplified joint-stock company with a sole shareholder (SASU), with share capital of 500 euros, Paris Trade and Companies Register (RCS) 131 251 845, 47 rue Vivienne, 75002 Paris, France. Contact: hello@sakalm.com.
Apple is neither organiser, nor sponsor, nor partner of these challenges, and takes no part in them in any way. The same goes for Google.
WHO CAN TAKE PART
Anyone aged 16 or over with a Sakalm account, living in one of the countries where sign-up to Sakalm is open, and entered in the challenge for the week concerned. Those countries are the ones offered on the sign-up screen. The ranking, the Bibs, the Goldies and the chests are the same for everyone, whatever the country.
On the day prizes start, the prize will go to whoever finishes first in the group, whatever their country, among those where sign-up is open. It will be delivered to the address they give, in their country. Delivery costs will be borne by the organiser; any customs duties and import taxes due in the winner’s country will remain theirs to pay. If the law of that country forbids handing them the prize, they will receive instead an item of equivalent value that this law allows, never a sum of money.
BEING FREE
Taking part is entirely free. Nothing can be bought in the app, in any form.
A paid subscription will exist at public launch. It will give no advantage in the ranking, no priority on the prize, and no reserved access to the challenge. A subscriber and a non-subscriber will compete on exactly equal terms.
HOW YOUR GROUP IS FORMED
Your group is not drawn at random. Chance plays no part at any moment in how it is made up.
Every Monday at midnight, everyone entered in the same sport and the same mode is brought together. Those still within their two placement weeks are set apart from the others, unless one of the two sets cannot form a complete group on its own: they are then brought together, and the group plays an ordinary week, with ten. Each set is then ranked by level, from highest to lowest, and the groups are formed following that list. So you play against the people whose level is closest to yours, and during your placement, as far as numbers allow, against people who are in placement too.
Your level is an index worked out from your activities over the last eight rolling weeks: what you were running more than two months ago no longer counts. Your first two weeks are the starting point. Nothing else goes into that calculation: not the subscription, not the Goldies, not the items you own, not how long you have had the account.
AUTOMATIC FORMING ONLY MAKES COMPLETE GROUPS: SIX PEOPLE DURING PLACEMENT, TEN AFTERWARDS, Challenge + included. When the two sets are brought together, as described above, the group has ten people. Only a manual adjustment, described below, can change that number. Six during placement, because a set of beginners nobody can yet place is better separated at six. During placement, groups of six are formed from the top of the list downwards. Afterwards, groups of ten are formed first among people whose level is very close; then those who remain form groups of ten among themselves with their nearest neighbours in level, again from the top of the list downwards.
Where indexes are strictly equal, a stable internal order separates them. It is the same from one week to the next and depends on no draw.
ANYONE WHO DOES NOT COMPLETE A GROUP HAS NONE THAT WEEK. When the number of entries does not divide evenly, those left over, fewer than six during placement or fewer than ten afterwards, are put in no group, and the same goes when there are too few entries to form a single one. Their entries are recorded as such, with the reason, rather than putting them in an incomplete group. A Bib staked for Challenge + is given back to them.
THE TEAM CAN ADJUST BY HAND. A member of the team can attach someone left without a group to the group whose level is closest, or place someone in a group outside the rule above. An adjustment is decided by a person, on level alone, never by a draw, and never to favour or disadvantage anyone.
This rule is published because it can be checked: the automatic forming is deterministic, and the same entries always produce the same groups. That is what makes the Challenge + prize an award for a sporting performance in a group formed by level, with no element of chance anywhere in the chain that leads to handing it over.
HOW YOU WIN
The ranking runs from Monday midnight to Sunday 20:00, Paris time.
The ranking is settled on cumulative DISTANCE. A second mode, on the AREA your loops enclose, is written and ready: it is not open yet, and the entry screen shows it greyed out. On the day it opens, the mode will be chosen at the moment of entry, for the whole week, and all the members of one group will play the same mode.
On the day prizes start, the prize will go to whoever finishes FIRST in the group that week, on the measure of the mode played: the greatest distance, or the greatest area. One winner per group and per week, barring a tie to the metre. The winner’s country will change nothing, and delivery will follow the rules written above.
Only activities that carry a track and that the automatic check has validated are counted. An activity recorded in the app counts. An activity imported from a connected watch counts too, provided it brings its track: an import reduced to a summary, with no track to verify, joins your history but is left out of the ranking.
Activities imported from a file do not count towards the challenge ranking. They join your personal history, but a file can be written by hand, so it cannot decide a prize.
In the event of a perfect tie to the metre, the people concerned are level and share the same rank. The ranking does not separate them: separating them at random would mean giving one what is taken from the other for no reason.
LEAGUES
Leagues are on hold. At the Sunday close, nobody moves up and nobody moves down, whatever your place and whatever the size of the group. The ranking, the Goldies, the chests and the Bibs are played as usual: only the league no longer moves.
Your placement weeks still measure your level, and groups are still formed between people of a comparable level.
If leagues come back, their rules will be written here before they apply, and you will be told.
BIBS, GOLDIES AND CHESTS
Goldies and Bibs are counters internal to the game. Goldies are earned by moving, at 2 Goldies per 1,000 steps and 1 Goldi per kilometre on a bike, up to a limit of 50,000 steps paid per day. They are also earned by opening chests, by keeping your streak day after day, by unlocking an achievement, by reaching a level that gives no Bib, and once only through the referral welcome gift when the person referred chooses it in that form. Goals and the week’s ranking do not pay Goldies directly: they give chests, and it is the chests that contain them. The Goldies balance is capped at 99,999: any amount that would take it past the cap is paid only up to it.
The Bib no longer forms on its own: it is bought with Goldies, in the shop, at the price shown on screen (1,000 Goldies as of today, or 500 for a Half-Bib, two halves making one whole Bib). It is also won in the week’s ranking, as described below, and obtained by levelling up: a Half-Bib at levels 5 and 10, a whole Bib at levels 15 and 20. These four milestones are the only ones, they are announced in advance on the level page, and they are reached by playing, never by a draw.
Referral gives one too: a welcome Half-Bib, once only per account, to the person referred once they have recorded their first activity with its route. This gift is not paid for and cannot be improved with money. No subscription, no purchase and no spending conditions it, and it can be swapped for its equivalent in Goldies. The detail is in the referral rules, a separate document, readable in the app and on the site.
NO BIB IS OBTAINED BY A DRAW. Chests contain neither Bibs nor Half-Bibs: a chest gives Goldies OR a title, and only one of those two at a time. A Bib is bought with Goldies earned by playing, won in the ranking, obtained at one of the four level milestones that give them, or comes from the referral welcome gift: in all four cases on a result obtained by playing, never through a Bib draw and never for money. The Goldies used to buy one may, for their part, come from a chest, like any Goldies. This rule is held by the code itself: the function that opens a chest contains no Bib draw.
CHEST ODDS
A chest is not bought and not sold. It is picked up on the map during an activity, or won by completing your goals, in Sunday’s ranking, and by levelling up; a welcome chest is also given once, at sign-up. No purchase, in any form, gives one more chest or a better chest, and the Premium account changes nothing there.
What a chest can give is limited to two things, and it gives only one: Goldies or a title. Never a piece of decoration or a theme, which are only obtained with Goldies or in the shop, never a Bib, never a prize, never a place in the ranking, never a sporting advantage.
The odds of each reward are published in the app, on the chests screen, where the full table is read from the server at the moment of opening: those are the values the draw actually uses, not a copy kept up to date by hand. This page queries no server and therefore cannot show them here.
When the draw picks a title and you already own them all, its value is paid in Goldies instead. The same title is never given twice. What a chest gives never depends on what you have bought.
Goldies are also used to buy single pieces of decoration: photo frames, looks for the start button, route colours and banners. During the test phase, whole themes can also be bought with Goldies; on the day the shop accepts euros, they will be sold for euros only. These items change nothing but the appearance of the app. None of them gives the slightest advantage in the ranking, and this rule is held by a technical constraint in the database, not only by this text.
Goldies cannot be bought, in any form, and there is no way to obtain them for money: they are earned by playing, in all the ways described above, and in no other way.
They give NO advantage in the ranking, and they play NO part in awarding the week’s prize, which depends on the sporting ranking of your group alone.
Nothing drawn at random, chests included, plays any part in awarding the prize: what is won by chance cannot decide an award.
WHAT MONEY BUYS, AND WHAT IT NEVER BUYS
Nothing is bought with money in the app today. The rules below describe what will hold on the day the shop accepts the euro, and they are published in advance so that nobody discovers them that day.
Money buys two things, and nothing else.
WHOLE THEMES, which change the appearance of the entire app. They are purely visual. Single pieces of decoration (photo frames, route styles, banners, looks for the start button) can only be bought with Goldies, and titles and achievements are not for sale: they are earned.
COMFORT FEATURES, through the Premium subscription: private groups without limit, instead of one between-friends group and one team-versus-team group at a time; the full breathing module, that is all six exercises and every duration, cardiac coherence and the evening breathing up to five minutes staying open to everyone; and random matchmaking, once it opens. The advanced analysis of each activity (the heart rate curve and zones, running dynamics, and speed and elevation in detail), importing from a watch, splits and exporting your data stay free.
NONE OF THESE FEATURES TOUCHES THE GAME. A private group credits no Goldi, no chest, no Bib and no experience point: its ranking is a matter among friends and it does not leave the group. Having more of them therefore earns nothing extra, and brings nobody closer to a prize. A random matchmaking group earns nothing but titles, which are purely visual.
NO EURO BUYS A GOLDI. The shop does not sell in-game currency, and it will not. How many Goldies someone has depends only on what they have done in the game: no sum of money creates a single one.
NO EURO BUYS A BIB, nor an entry to Challenge +, nor a chance at a prize. It is the rule that matters most in all of these rules.
NO EURO BUYS A CHEST, nor improves what a chest can give. An account that pays and an account that does not open exactly the same chests, with exactly the same odds.
NO PAID ITEM AND NO PAID FEATURE GIVES A SPORTING ADVANTAGE: no kilometre, no experience point, no level, no place in the ranking, no area, no streak day saved. The subscription is no exception: it gives you things to see and to organise, never things to win. This rule is not only written here, it is held by a database constraint that refuses to put on sale any item having the slightest effect on the game.
Single pieces of decoration are obtained with Goldies, whole themes with euros. No item is sold both ways, and every one of them is purely visual.
ACCESS TO CHALLENGE + IS COMPLETE WITHOUT SPENDING A EURO. The Bib is obtained with Goldies earned by playing, in the week’s ranking outside placement weeks (in the ordinary challenge, a whole Bib for first place and a Half-Bib for the following places up to 30% of the group, that is third place in a group of ten; in Challenge +, a whole Bib from second place up to 30% of the group, and a Half-Bib up to 70%), at one of the four level milestones that give them, or through the referral welcome gift. None of these four paths asks for money, and none is reserved for subscribers.
The subscription follows the same rule: it sells depth, never a collectible item, never an advantage, never a priority on a prize, never reserved access to the challenge.
CHALLENGE +
The week’s challenge is played in two ways. The ordinary way is free: you enter, you run, you are ranked, and nothing is asked in return.
Challenge + is the other. You enter it by spending ONE BIB, and it is the only mode where a prize is at stake. The Bib is debited at entry, whatever the result of the week: it pays for the entry, not for the win.
A Bib cannot be bought with money. It is earned by playing, or swapped for Goldies, themselves earned by playing. No euro opens that door, and a subscription would open it no wider.
If you have no group that week, because there were not enough entries or because you completed no group, the Bib is given back. Nobody pays an entry for a week they did not play.
The Challenge + ranking follows the same rules as the ordinary challenge, and the top of the group takes the prize. The places below earn Bibs and Half-Bibs according to their position in the group. Beyond that, the stake is not returned.
This mode gives NO sporting advantage. It does not make anyone run faster, nor count double: it opens access to an award, and nothing else. Two people of the same level, one in Challenge + and one not, run exactly the same challenge.
THE PRIZE
No prize is at stake during the test phase, and no award is owed to anyone for a week played during that phase.
At public launch, a prize will be at stake in the groups entered in Challenge +, every week. What it is will be announced on the Challenge screen at the start of the week. It will not be exchangeable, transferable, or replaceable by its value in money. It will be delivered in the winner’s country, among those where sign-up is open.
The winner will be told by email within seven days of the close, and will have thirty days to reply and give a delivery address. Without a reply within that time, the prize will be lost. A participant aged 16 or 17 will only be able to receive a prize with the agreement of a parent or of the holder of parental authority. Delivery costs will be borne by the organiser, in all these countries. Any customs duties and import taxes due in the winner’s country will remain theirs to pay. The organiser cannot be held liable for a prize lost, damaged or delayed by the carrier, nor for harm connected to the use of the prize after it is handed over.
WHO ORGANISES, AND WHO DOES NOT
This challenge is run by Sakalm, and by Sakalm alone. Apple and Google are neither organisers, nor sponsors, nor parties to it, and are in no way associated with how it runs, with its rules or with the awarding of prizes. No claim about a challenge can be addressed to them.
HOW AN ACTIVITY IS CHECKED
Every activity is analysed automatically when it arrives. The analysis looks at the track itself: speed and acceleration, the quality of the signal, position jumps, those anomalies repeating within one activity, and the presence of a simulated position. An activity may come out validated, set aside for checking, or refused. An activity too short to be measured stays in your history, but it does not count.
Even before that analysis, the server checks that an activity can be recorded: that the times sent by the phone add up, that it does not overlap another one, that its track stays within its duration, and that this duration stays within the limits. An activity that fails this check is refused on arrival and does not join the history.
The bands of the overall score are written in the privacy policy, because you have the right to know how an automated decision is made. The thresholds of each individual clue, on the other hand, are not published, and they will not be. Publishing them would amount to handing out the instructions for staying just below them, which would serve no one except whoever is cheating.
An activity that is set aside or refused does not by itself lead to any action against the account. It simply does not count towards that week’s ranking.
WHAT COUNTS AS CHEATING
This is not a list of technical cases, it is what is forbidden, put plainly:
Covering the distance by any means other than your own body: by car, motorcycle, train, scooter, towed, or carried by someone or something else.
Making the device believe it is somewhere it is not, through a developer setting, a mock location app, or any other means.
Using a modified version of the app, or a device whose protections have been removed.
Submitting someone else’s activity, a fabricated file, or a track taken from elsewhere.
Holding several accounts to multiply your chances, or having someone other than the account holder play an account.
THE DEVICE MUST RUN THE APP AS PUBLISHED
To compete in a group where a prize is at stake, the activity must come from the official app, unmodified, installed from the App Store or Google Play, on a device whose original protections are in place. An activity that does not meet this condition may be left out of the Challenge + ranking, even if nothing else is held against it.
This condition applies to Challenge + only. The ordinary challenge, levels, Goldies and the collection do not require it.
A PERSON CHECKS BEFORE THE PRIZE LEAVES
Sunday’s close names the winner. It sends them nothing.
The prize then waits seventy-two hours, during which nothing is shipped, and is then reviewed by a person. That review covers the winner, whatever their score: their week is compared with their previous weeks, and their activities for the week are examined again one by one.
The decision to award or to refuse is written down, dated, and kept together with what it was based on, including the analysis settings in force that day. It can therefore be read back as it stood months later, and that is what makes a challenge to it worth something.
EXCLUSION
Any attempt to distort a measurement leads to exclusion from the challenge, without notice and without compensation. The prize for the week concerned is lost, with no replacement, no payment of its value in money, and no return of the Bib that was staked.
An exclusion is never decided on its own: a person pronounces it, on the basis of the review described above.
The organiser reserves the right to cancel, postpone or change a challenge week in the event of force majeure or technical failure, without this giving rise to any right to compensation.
CHALLENGING A DECISION
Any decision can be challenged, whether it concerns an activity that was set aside or a prize that was refused.
By email to hello@sakalm.com, giving the date of the activity or the week concerned, and what happened.
The time limit is thirty days from the activity for an activity, and thirty days from the close for a prize.
The answer is written and reasoned, within seventy-two working hours, and within one month at the latest. It is kept together with the original decision.
Challenging costs nothing, exposes you to no penalty, and needs no justification beyond saying what happened.
This is a translation, provided for convenience. Sakalm is published in France and its obligations are written in French. Where the two versions differ, the French version prevails.