While MyWhoosh has taken the World Tour races, the original online cycling world has launched competitions for the rest of us with the inaugural Zwift Games.
Running throughout March 2024, the Zwift Games feature community racing for all abilities with a five-stage series. Registration is open now, and the series runs from March 1-17. Make-up events for each stage will follow from March 18-31, and all events are category-enforced with a mix of sprint, endurance, and climbing stages and schedules to suit every racer.
Complete all five stages and you’ll find yourself in the General Classification challenge, competing for the best overall time across all five stages. Race each stage as many times as you want to log your best overall total, and track your rank on Zwift Power.
What routes are in the Zwift Games?
It depends on your category, but there are four new courses created just for the Games, albeit cobbled together from their existing maps. Stage 1 is the Loop de Loop, and it’s a sprint.
Stage 2 is the Jurassic Coast, a short, mostly flat TT (ignore that elevation profile, total elevation is just 212m).
For Category A/B racers, Stage 3 (the “Epic Stage”) is a monster 81.5km lap with looped out-and-back extension.
For Category C/D racers, Stage 3 loops through Titans Grove before circling up and down the volcano, offering two KOM sections to fool you into gassing yourself mid-stage.
Stage 4 is shared by all categories and runs through Glasgow in a circuit for five laps.
Stage 5 for A/B category racers is a relentless, steep, 17.3km uphill climbing challenge with plenty of corners to try to take your mind off the pain.
Stage 5 for C/D category riders is a hill climb with mountain top finish. It’s an all-out effort, but mercifully shorter than the A/B race, so you could give it a few goes on different days.
Do the Zwift Games have prizes?
Much like modern youth sports, everyone’s a winner just for showing up. Regardless of your rankings, every stage you complete unlocks exclusive digital gear for your avatar. Complete just one stage and you unlock adidas Tempo 3-Stripes BOA Shoes.
Complete any two stages and you’ll snag a (virtual) pair of Oakley Sphaera sunglasses. Whether they’re photochromic for those virtual night rides remains to be seen.
But if you do win for real, the top competitors in each discipline will take home a custom gold-and-black Wahoo KICKR Bike!
Elite-level Cycling E-Sports broadcasts
More than 300 elite athletes from 33 countries will be racing (check the start list here), and all of their races will be broadcast live on Zwift’s YouTube channel. Schedule is:
- Sprint Championship: Men’s 3/2 6pm UTC / Women’s 3/3 6pm UTC
- Epic Championship: Men’s 3/9 6pm UTC / Women’s 3/10 6pm UTC
- Sprint Championship: Men’s 3/16 6pm UTC / Women’s 3/17 6pm UTC
The overall winner with the best combined results from all three stages only gets the Wahoo KICKR Bike IRL, they’ll also get a gold Concept Z1 bike to ride in-game for a year. After that, they’ll need to defend their title in next year’s Games.
