UCI Cycling eSports World Championship: Mode, routes, favourites & live stream
Thomas Huber
· 24.10.2024
Shortly after the end of the UCI World Tour 2024 the virtual cycling highlight of the season is coming up. The Indoor E-Cycling World Championships will take place in Abu Dhabi on 26 October. For the first time, the participants in the e-cycling world championships will not be taking part from home, but will instead take place in person. 42 riders will take part in the event in Abu Dhabi, organised by MyWhoosh, to decide the men's and women's Indoor Cycling eSports World Champion.
The most important facts in brief
- Date: 26 October 2024
- Format: 3 stages
- Venue: Abu Dhabi
- Venue platform: MyWhoosh
- UCI category: Cycling Esports
- Premiere: 2020 (4th edition, for the first time on MyWhoosh, previously Zwift)
- Last year's winner: Loes Adegeest (Netherlands)
- Last year's winner: Björn Andreassen (Denmark)
- Click here for the race report
UCI Cycling eSports World Championship 2024 in the live stream
The Cycling eSports World Championships 2024 will not be broadcast live on German TV. Instead, it will be available on the two streaming platforms YouTube and Twitch a free live broadcast from Saturday 26 October at 16:00. The livestream will be available on the organiser's channel MyWhoosh.
What is e-cycling?
E-cycling is the term used to describe cycling in a virtual environment. Athletes ride a racing bike with a smart trainer or a smart bike. The rider's performance is measured by a power meter, which in turn is connected to software on an e-cycling platform. On this platform, the athlete's performance is transferred to a digital avatar located in a virtual environment. There, the athlete can compete with other riders and their digital avatars based on their actual performance.
E-cycling is part of eSports due to the virtual competition, but differs significantly from many other eSports disciplines in one respect. Unlike many other virtual sports, digital cycling involves actual physical performance.
The development of cycling eSports
After the previous three eCycling World Championships were all organised by the Zwift platform, MyWhoosh has secured the rights for the eSports World Championships for the years 2024, 2025 and 2026.
December 2020 saw the first eSports World Championship in cycling. At the time, professional road cycling was paralysed due to the coronavirus pandemic. Athletes also had to keep fit on their home trainers due to lockdown restrictions. In addition, e-cycling became increasingly popular among amateur cyclists and experienced a real boom during the pandemic. There were virtual editions of prominent cycling races such as the Tour of Flanders or even the Tour de France. E-cycling became increasingly popular due to the opportunity to take part in cycling races from home and compete with other athletes, sometimes even professionals. E-cycling was also represented when the IOC organised the first edition of the Olympic eSports Series in Singapore in 2023.
Cycling eSports World Championships
2020
The first Cycling eSport World Championships in 2020 took the form of a 50-kilometre one-day race organised by the Zwift platform. Big names in cycling were already taking part. Anna van der Breggen and Ashleigh Moolman Pasio competed in the women's race, while Rigoberto Uran and Luis Leon Sanchez took part in the men's race. The winner of the first World Championships was co-favourite Ashleigh Moolman Pasio in the women's race, while the first men's winner was the German Jason Osborne. Born in Mainz, he entered professional cycling in 2023 with the World Tour team Alpecin-Deceuninck. He is now focussing on e-cycling and gravel racing again.
2022
As the UCI subsequently decided to postpone the Cycling eSport World Championships from December to February, the competition was not held in 2021. In 2022, for the first time, members of the Zwift cycling community had the opportunity to take part in qualifying events with the help of their national association and secure a place in the World Championship final. The winners at the time were Jay Vine (Australia) and Loes Adegeest (Netherlands), both of whom have since gone on to play an important role in the road cycling world.
2023
In 2023, the format was changed from a one-day race to a series of elimination races. As in the previous year, qualifying rounds were held in the preceding months to determine the field of participants. However, there were now three elimination races. While there were still 100 riders in the first of the three competitions, only the best 30 riders from the first race rode the second round. The third race then took place with the best ten riders from the second round until only three riders were left. They then battled it out for the podium places. The winner was once again Loes Adegeest, while Björn Andreassen won the men's race.
2024
The format will change again in 2024. With the new organiser MyWhoosh, the final will no longer be held from home; instead, the finalists will all meet in one place for the first time: in Abu Dhabi. There, the world championship participants will compete for the e-cycling world championship title. The world champion will be determined using a new scoring method - a points system. The date of the World Championships has also been moved to the end of October.
How the Cycling eSports World Championship qualifiers went
In order to qualify for the world championship finals in Abu Dhabi, the eSports athletes had to survive two preliminary rounds. Firstly, they had to qualify for the semi-finals and then perform well enough in those to be eligible for the finals.
Qualification
From May to August 2024, national federations were able to nominate riders to take part in the semi-finals after organising different race formats. According to a key set up by the UCI, federations from different countries were able to nominate different numbers of riders for the semi-finals. For each gender, 120 of the 150 semi-final participants come from national federations, while the organiser MyWhoosh can select 30 riders from its own community. This means that anyone who does not have the opportunity to obtain a World Championship ticket via the qualification process of the respective national association can qualify for the semi-finals directly via the organiser's platform.
Semi-finals
The semi-finals of the Cycling eSports World Championships took place on 6 September. A total of 300 riders took part in the event, which could be ridden from home. As in the finals, races were held in which points were awarded according to performance. Those who were able to secure enough points in the semi-finals qualified for the finals.
There were two races in the semi-finals. In the first, 150 participants per gender took part. Only 80 riders qualified for the second semi-final race. The 20 best riders per gender from the second race are now allowed to travel to Abu Dhabi. In addition, the organiser MyWhoosh is able to award two wildcards per gender. This gives riders the opportunity to take part in the World Championship finals without having officially qualified for them. MyWhoosh made use of this option for the men's final, so that 22 riders will now start there, while the women's final will remain with a starting field of 20 riders.
The final races in Abu Dhabi
For the first time in the history of the Cycling eSports World Championships, the finals will take place at one location. Until now, every athlete could take part at home, at their sports club or at another location of their choice. On 26 October 2024, all finalists will be on site in Abu Dhabi. There, they will not only compete against each other for the World Championship medals. A total of 60,000 US dollars will be in the organiser's prize pool, which can be won by the participants. The male and female winners will each be rewarded with 15,000 US dollars. To put this into perspective: the winner of the 2023 E-cycling World Championships won 8,000 euros - so now the money for the winner has almost doubled.
The routes of the UCI Cycling eSports World Championships
The World Championship finals, which take place on 26 October, consist of three races in which the riders collect as many points as possible. There will be 22 men and 20 women competing separately for the World Championship title. The points system and the different race courses are designed to give all types of riders a chance to compete for the World Championship title - whether sprint, classic or mountain specialists.
The Sprint
The first race of the World Championship finals is The Sprint. It takes place over a 1.7 kilometre flat course, for which the riders have a time limit of 15 minutes. The aim is to achieve their best time in a sprint over 300 metres. It is up to the riders to decide at which point in the race they carry out the sprint. The finalists have different options for competing in the race. They can ride the 300 metre sprint as early as possible, when they still have maximum energy, or wait until the last moment to know what time they have to beat. The race is therefore characterised by tactics and sprinting power. The riders with the fastest 300 metre times score the most points in the first race. The top 20 are awarded points in descending order. The winner of the race therefore receives 20 points, second place 19 points and twentieth place one point.
The two subsequent races should already be familiar to the drivers, after all they are the identical races that were held in the semi-final.
The Strategy
The Strategy is the second race and is organised differently to the opening race. There is a 9-kilometre race course that includes a 1.5-kilometre climb. Points can be collected at the foot of the climb, at its highest point and at the finish. Double the number of points are awarded at the finish compared to the other two classifications. The winner therefore receives 40 points in the final classification, while a maximum of 20 points can be scored in each of the two preceding classifications.
All Out
The last race of the World Championship finals is called All Out. It takes place on a 4-kilometre-long criterium course that has to be ridden a total of four times. Points are awarded at the end of each lap - a maximum of 20 points can be won per classification. The fastest riders are again awarded double points for crossing the finish line. This means that the winner of the race will receive 40 points and the runner-up 38 points. The end of each lap is a short, steep climb with a maximum gradient of twelve per cent.
The world champion is the rider who has accumulated the most points in all three races. There is a winner of the Men's World Championship and a winner of the Women's World Championship. These winners are allowed to ride in Cycling eSport races with a world champion avatar until the next world championship and are also given a real jersey to wear in the races.
Favourites & German riders at the UCI Cycling eSports World Championships
The favourites
42 riders from 17 nations have qualified for the World Championship final in Abu Dhabi. Lou Bates from Great Britain won the women's semi-final and therefore enjoys the status of top favourite. Alongside her, Jacqueline Godbe from the USA is also among the favourites. She was last year's bronze medallist at the E-cycling World Championships. Merle Brunnee and Pia Kummer will be competing from Germany. The latter also recently took part in the German Road Championships. The winner of the last two World Championships, Loes Adegeest (Netherlands), will not be competing again this year.
The favourites
Ollie Jones from New Zealand won the men's semi-final ahead of Hayden Pucker (USA) and Stefan van Aelst (Belgium). Last year's winner Björn Andreassen from Denmark came fourth. All four riders can be expected to compete in the World Championship finals again. However, probably the best-known World Championship starter comes from Germany. Jason Osborne recently ended his professional road cycling career - also to devote himself more to cycling eSports. Osborne, who was still under contract with Alpecin-Deceuninck until recently, became the first Cycling eSports World Champion in 2020. He took bronze in 2022 and silver last year behind Andreassen. He is also one of the favourites this year. The second German competing in the World Championship finals is Martin Maertens. Daniel Turek from the Czech Republic, who is currently riding for Team ATT Investments in the Continental Tour, has received a wildcard.
Well-known riders who celebrated their breakthrough in e-cycling
There are numerous examples of riders who celebrated their breakthrough in e-cycling and went on to play an important role in road cycling. The best-known example is probably the Australian Jay Vine, but Loes Adegeest and Jason Osborne also slipped into the World Tour in this way.
Jay Vine
Australian Jay Vine started his career riding for lower-level cycling teams before winning the final of the Zwift Academy programme at the end of 2020 and securing a contract with Alpecin-Fenix. He already impressed with strong performances in his first year with the World Tour team. After winning the e-cycling world title in 2022 and two stage wins at the 2022 Vuelta, Vine switched to the Pogacar team UAE Team Emirates, for whom he still rides today. Most recently, he attracted attention again at the Vuelta - where he won the mountain classification of the 2024 tour.
Loes Adegeest
Loes Adegeest has been the benchmark in women's e-cycling in recent years. She won the world title in both 2022 and 2023. Her success did not go unrecognised in professional road cycling. She received a professional contract with the French World Tour team FDJ-Suez in 2023. She finished third on stage 3 of the 2024 Tour de France Femmes.
Jason Osborne
Former German professional cyclist Jason Osborne has had a crazy sporting career. He first started his career as a rower - with resounding success. In 2018, Osborne became lightweight single sculls world champion and won a silver medal at the 2021 Olympic Games in Tokyo. He was already cycling on the side at this point, finishing sixth at the 2019 German Road Cycling Championships. When he became the first e-cycling world champion in December 2020, he became a stagiaire at Deceuninck-Quickstep shortly afterwards and ended his career as a rower. Osborne later rode for Team Alpecin-Deceuninck for two years before having to end his career as a professional cyclist in September 2024 due to persistent hip problems.
Equal opportunities
Because even minimal differences in the performance of athletes can make the difference between winning and losing in cycling, the UCI announced in a press release that it wants to guarantee "fair and credible races for all athletes". To this end, it has introduced a series of performance review processes that athletes must follow in the form of protocols and instructions. This is intended to ensure the authenticity and accuracy of each athlete's performance and ensure fair competition.
MyWhoosh has also introduced a verification process that every athlete must go through by having a so-called Power Passport. It is a personalised performance indicator of the e-cycling software.
At the World Championship finals, all athletes will compete with the same smart trainer provided by Elite, the Justo 2 - the first of its kind in the world. We tested the predecessor model. This should ensure that all athletes have the same conditions and that competition is fair.
