It seems that Zwift has been building up until now. The startup offers an application with virtual worlds that runners, cyclists and triathletes can traverse using their personal treadmill or their bike trainer. A virtual avatar will match your performance at home, speeding up when you jog or pedal faster, and falling when your legs start to tire, and will take into account other factors like drawing. Some treadmills and trainers will also slightly adjust their angle to match the incline you are trying to climb.
Zwift has a free race and driving mode, as well as structured workouts and competitive races. Professional cyclists have embraced the latter during COVID-19, and Zwift has responded by hosting additional events that can be viewed on their YouTube channel. These broadcasts don’t have the same production values as the Overwatch League or League of Legends European Championship (LEC), but it’s something that cycling fans have been able to draw on during a tumultuous period for the industry.
Zwift events are different from traditional races: the turn is automatic, for example, and it is more difficult to detect when another pilot could attack. Some Zwift events also have Mario Kart-style power-ups, which allow the pilot to become invisible, lighter, or temporarily increase recruitment effects. Zwift is not concerned with absolute realism and most riders have accepted that the platform requires new ideas and strategies.
The competition will take place in six stages that each take approximately one hour to complete.
The virtual Tour de France should be Zwift’s biggest event to date. The competition will take place in six stages that each take approximately one hour to complete. Men and women will compete separately, as in real life, but they will compete in identical courses. The first two stages will take place in Watopia, a fictional world that Zwift developed for his broader cycling and racing community, with “various visual additions” inspired by Nice, the seaside town that will host the ‘Grand Départ’ tour in real life.
Zwift
The race will go to a map of France created specifically for the virtual tour. Meanwhile, the final stage will imitate real life with a circuit in Paris that runs through the Champs Elysées and the Arc de Triomphe.
Zwift and ASO, the royal organizer of the Tour de France, want the event to have a festive atmosphere. However, that does not mean that races are not competitive. Twenty-three men’s teams have signed up for the event, including current tour champion Egan Bernal and former winners Geraint Thomas and Chris Froome. The women’s competition will be equally fierce, with 17 professional teams including superstar Marianne Vos and Olympic gold medalist Anna van der Breggen.
Just like the real life tour, cyclists will be able to compete for the green (best sprinter), polka dots (best climber), white (best rookie) and yellow (overall winner) jerseys. Each category will be decided by points, unlike the real-life tour, which uses time to decide the yellow jersey, and all scores will be grouped together to decide the best overall team. Zwift chose this system so that squads can rotate riders between different stages.
Zwift
Zwift says the competition will be shown on its website, the Global Cycling Network (GCN) app and through television stations in more than 130 countries. These include Eurosport (Europe), Eurosport Asia (Asia), NBCSN (USA), FloBikes (Canada), SBS (Australia), Zhibo.tv (China), and J Sports (Japan). These partnerships are a great opportunity for Zwift to demonstrate that its platform needs to be taken seriously. Virtual racing cannot replace cycling in the real world, but there is a chance that it may become a complementary sport that helps teams diversify their incomes and face difficult financial recessions.
“Today, e-sports for us are athletes competing from the comfort of their homes,” explained Eric Min, CEO of Zwift on the CyclingTips Podcast last month. “Due to the situation we are in. The future is for us to enter an arena with 30,000 or 40,000 people, where we can sell tickets, concessions and broadcast rights. That is the end state.”
However, it’s not just about the professionals. The virtual tour will have a side event for fans called Virtual l’Etape du Tour de France. Every weekend, Zwift will take a single stage designed for elite runners (the first weekend will offer the second stage of the virtual tour, for example) and will conduct 16 “mass participation” sessions on Saturday and Sunday. In theory, this will give casual and club riders a small taste of the Tour de France and a time or score that they can directly compare to professionals.
The Virtual Tour will be part of the Tour de France United, a series of events and initiatives that will raise money for five charitable partners: Emmaüs, Secours Populaire, Jeugdfonds Sport and Cultuur, BiJeWa and Qhubeka.
Will Zwift racing ever supplant the Real Life Tour? Probably not. But if the worst happens and the physical Tour de France is canceled this year, at least fans will have some sort of replacement to watch and remember.
