Zwift has given further background to the third UCI Cycling Esports World Championships, to be held on Saturday, February 18, 2023.
The races will see 200 cyclists across many cycling disciplines, including e-sports specialists, from 23 nations take the start line on Zwift’s brand-new Scotland map. Zwift noted that, this year, a new racing format is front and centre, that will… ‘produce exciting viewing, and fierce racing.’
The 2023 UCI Cycling Esports World Championships will be broadcast live on Zwift’s YouTube Channel, as well as on GCN’s YouTube Channel. Results will be available on Zwift.com following the race.
Cycling esports
Cycling esports is one of the disciplines of cycling governed by the UCI. The 2023 UCI Cycling Esports World Championships will be the third edition to be held after the new discipline was first added to the list of the UCI’s sanctioned events in December 2020.
As in all Zwift racing, athletes racing the 2023 world championships can deploy PowerUps, adding a layer of gamification, strategy, and viewer entertainment to the physical contest. In most Zwift racing, PowerUps are randomized and athletes have to strategize on the fly with what they receive. At the UCI Cycling Esports World Championships, all athletes will be awarded the same PowerUps: the Breakaway Burrito in the first and third races, and the Anvil in the second race.
When deployed, the Breakaway Burrito disables drafting for all riders in a small radius around the competitor for 10 seconds, taking away a key advantage. The Anvil makes a Zwifter heavier for 30 seconds. Extra weight can be a significant advantage on virtual descents, and the second stage of the UCI Cycling Esports World Championships will feature a lot of descending.
Because all racers will receive the same PowerUps, the strategy for deploying them will factor heavily into the racing action, helping a racer escape on a climb, win a sprint, or save some energy.
The winner of the men’s and women’s events will be awarded the UCI Cycling Esports World Champions jersey incorporating the coveted rainbow stripes. Winners will earn the right to wear a physical jersey during sanctioned esports races until the 2024 UCI Cycling Esports World Championships. Alongside this, the winning athletes will also be able to wear a digital version of the UCI Cycling Esports World Champion’s rainbow jersey while on the Zwift platform.
Format and courses
Zwift and the UCI have collaborated to create a new racing format for the 2023 Cycling Esports World Championships. The new multi-discipline format features three races contested within a 75-minute period.
The first of the three races, called The Punch, will be held on the Rolling Highlands course, a 14.1 km course with 105m of rolling climbs. The new course is part of Zwift’s Scotland map, which was built for the 2023 Cycling Esports World Championships. Zwift adds that the rollercoaster-like roads will narrow the field down from 100 starters to only the first 30 riders across the line.
After a short break, the top 30 finishers from the first race will start the second race, The Climb, a hill climb scratch race held on Scotland’s City and the Sgurr course. This 8.6 km course with 161m of virtual climbing per lap will challenge racers to repeatedly climb the toughest climb in the new Scotland world. Only the top ten finishers will advance to the third stage.
The third and final race of the 2023 UCI Cycling Esports World Championships, The Podium, will take place on the Glasgow Crit Circuit, a 3 km loop with 33m of climbing. In a first for world championship cycling esports, this final race will feature an elimination format.
Popular in track cycling, elimination racing moves the action from the front of the pack to the back; on each lap, the last rider across the finish line will be pulled out of the race. When the field has been reduced from 10 to three riders, the last remaining cyclists will race for the win and remaining podium spots.
