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Question

Closed-team challenge leaderboard with opt-in — compliant with API Policy?

  • July 10, 2026
  • 1 reply
  • 31 views

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Hi everyone,

I'm building RumBora a team-based fitness challenge platform, 
and want to make sure our design complies with the current API Policy 
before we invest further development time. I saw a few similar threads 
here (leaderboard rejections, RunningCup, Fitness Challenges) but 
wanted to describe our specific flow and get feedback from the 
community and, hopefully, the Strava team.

**Use case:**
1. An organizer creates a challenge and invites a closed group of 
   participants (a "team").
2. Each invited athlete joins the platform and explicitly authorizes 
   access to their own Strava data via OAuth — opt-in, specific to 
   that challenge.
3. Activity data is received via webhooks (aspect_type: create) and 
   we calculate aggregate totals (distance, time, average speed, 
   elevation gain) for each athlete.
4. We display a leaderboard with team members' totals — but strictly 
   limited to that team's own members and the organizer who invited 
   them. No public leaderboards, no cross-team visibility.
5. We never show individual per-activity data (GPS traces, routes, 
   splits) to other athletes — only aggregate totals for the challenge 
   period.

**Questions:**
1. Does a closed-team, opt-in leaderboard like this comply with the 
   Policy's rule that data may only be displayed "to that end user"? 
   Or does showing one athlete's totals to teammates (even with 
   consent, in a closed group) fall outside what's permitted?
2. If a fully closed team leaderboard isn't allowed, would showing 
   each user only their own totals + one anonymized team aggregate 
   (no individual breakdown) be an acceptable alternative?
3. Is there a recommended consent mechanism (beyond standard OAuth) 
   to formally record that a participant agrees to share totals with 
   their specific team?
4. Given expected scale (multiple organizers/teams over time, 
   potentially thousands of athletes), should we plan our review 
   directly for Extended Access Tier, or start under Standard and 
   request increases as we grow?

 

Any guidance from the Strava team or from others who've navigated a 
similar review would be much appreciated. Want to build this the 
right way from day one.

Thanks!

1 reply

Jan_Mantau
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  • Hub Powerhouse
  • July 10, 2026

At the end only Strava will know and they won’t reveal before a review or even on a review rejection what they see as a problem. But it will probably not be allowed even in its most basic leaderbaord form because it competes with their subscription only group challenges feature.