Eurosport and Global Cycling Network (GCN) are ‘bringing live cycling back to millions of sports fans through Zwift’s Tour for All exhibition racing series.’ This is a professional racing tour to be held on the Zwift virtual platform over five stages raced on May 4-8, 2020.
Featuring teams from both the men’s and women’s World Tour, each stage will be screened live on all Eurosport platforms and streamed globally on the GCN app – with highlights across the GCN show and social media channels. This is part of the first collaboration between the two brands that will aim to ‘serve the largest community of cycling fans and provide more ways than ever to watch premium cycling content.’
Both men’s and women’s racing will be screened each day between 1400 and 1600 BST (1500 and 1700 CEST). Some of the best cycling teams in the world – including Mitchelton-Scott, EF-Education, NTT, Alpecin-Fenix, Bahrain-McLaren, Canyon//SRAM Racing, CCC-Liv and Boels Dolmans – will be competing for race honours.
Teams and the top 25 riders will gain points across the week alongside a daily individual race winner. There will also be intermediate points on each stage and bonus points for the top 10 on the Queen Stage (Stage 5).
Stages will range in distance from approximately 45km to 75km and approximately 400m and 1700m in elevation with race times estimated to be between 1hr 15min and 2hr, depending on the distance and elevation of each stage. Results will be points based and determined by the team’s performance and results for each stage.
Andrew Georgiou, President, Eurosport and Global Sports Rights & Sports Marketing Solutions, said “During the current pause in live sport, Discovery is bringing to the fore its creativity and partnership building credentials to bring fans the type of live content they’ve been missing. We are going beyond the archive to offer something completely new that will bring together cycling fans on mass with new stories and unpredictable moments at every turn.”
He continued, “Through this series, we aim to leverage Discovery’s unrivalled global scale, brands and channel portfolio as part of a deeper collaboration between Eurosport and GCN to bring new and larger audiences to cycling so they can experience the thrills of the sport first-hand.”
Simon Wear, Founder and CEO of Play Sports Group, said “In the current climate, cycling fans all over the world are seeking new ways to engage with their passion and keep up to date with the riders they are used to seeing in action through their towns and villages. We feel it’s extremely important to support and celebrate the efforts of these teams and riders and share everything we can with the cycling community.
“Tour for All is a great example of riders across continents teaming up to fuel their desire to be the best in the sport. With the interactive features on the new GCN app, it’s a fantastic way to capture the excitement of professional stage racing and share it with cycling fans all over the world across the Eurosport TV network, Eurosport Digital and the GCN App.”
Eric Min, Zwift CEO and Co-Founder said “I’m thrilled to finally be able to announce this new exhibition series in conjunction with GCN and Eurosport, bringing high level racing and top class entertainment to the world’s cycling fans.
“Over the past few months, we’ve delivered a huge number of unique experiences and opportunities to ride with the stars of the World Tour peloton. I know many have been keen to see when Zwift will bring World Tour teams together to race, and I can’t think of a better way to deliver this series of men’s and women’s exhibition racing than to kick off our charity month, ‘Tour for All’ in support of Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).”
www.zwift.com/tfaride
www.msf.org
