Americans Animate Animated Zwift Women's Worlds, but You'll Never Guess Which Country Won
(You can probably totally guess which country won)
Saturday provided a rare opportunity to take in a Spring Classics double-header. Shortly after the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad wrapped up in Belgium, the top virtual racing athletes in the world took to the streets of fake New York for the 2022 eRacing World Championships.
Like I said, two spring CLASSICS.
We did a brief post about the event on Friday where we took a look at the course in a virtual New York that featured a leg-searing climb up some “future” skyway Zwift created about the city. As a Zwift rider who only occasionally rides in New York, I remember that the climb is awful, but I kind of forgot specifically why it is awful.
I quickly remembered while watching riders go up the two steep kickers on the 1.4-zilometer climb that top out at 15-20% gradients; they are just the worst when you are riding them in a race. The Women and Men got to go up this climb three times, with the race finishing in the sky for a faux mountain-top finish. Not surprisingly, the final climbs made for some compelling racing.
It is worth noting that the broadcast of Zwift Worlds shows how far the platform’s race broadcasting has come. When I first jumped onto the Zwift racing beat back in 2019 covering Zwift Nationals, race commentators had to follow riders in-game and switch camera angles and riders to follow along with what was happening in the race.
Zwift has since developed “camera angles” for showing the peloton like you might see on a regular race broadcast. They have even started to incorporate time splits between groups. The “live” leaderboard might need to go, however, as Zwift pelotons are known for there constant churn of riders, so unless there is breakaway, it’s kind of an irrelevant piece of information. But that’s neither here nor there, the broadcast technology has improved a ton in the last few years.
Elite Women
Heading into the Elite Women’s race, all eyes were ostensibly on Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio of South Africa. She won last year’s event, which also featured a hill-top finish, and with her climbing skills, she seemed like a good candidate to take the win on the New York QOM finish.
The Knickerbocker course more or less went climb —> 20k of flatish stuff —> climb —> 20k of flatish stuff —> final climb.
Moolman-Pasio seemed to be on good form from the beginning of the race, as she led the Zeloton up the first climb of the New York QOM. Joining her in putting in work on the climbs was American rider Kristen Kulchinsky. The Americans had a strong ten-rider team in the race and from the start raced like a team looking to take advantage of its strength and numbers.
The first climb calved off a good chunk of the field and left about 40 riders in the lead group. Things stayed relatively calm until the second of three climbs, where Moolman-Pasio and Kulchinsky again helped set the pace. A few more riders fell off the lead group, leaving about 25 riders in the lead group with one lap left to go.
Things started to get spicy at the beginning of the final lap when Kulchinsky launched an attack that was initially followed by one of the Swedish riders. The move was more of a feint, and it was quickly swallowed up.
Folks who have listened to our Nowhere Fast podcast or tried YOLOing an attack in their own Zwift race know that to get free of the Zeloton, you need to ATTACK. With massive watts for a sustained period of time. The drafting dynamics in the Zeloton are such that there is a huge advantage to being in a group, and if you are going to go solo, well, good luck.
Almost as soon as the Kulchinsky move got swallowed up, American Katheryn Curi put in a massive attack of her own. Zwift is heavily heavily reliant on watts per kilogram as the driver of how fast you can go, and as such, their broadcasts frequently provide a look at those numbers. Curi started her attack at 8 w/kg and then dropped into a pace of 5 w/kg.
Despite Curi’s efforts, the best she could do was a gap of about 5 seconds—the leaderboard did come in handy in this case. Her move got eaten up with 14 zilometers to go.
Next up on the American attack train was the ridin’ professor Stefanie Sydlik, who unleashed her effort just inside 14zm to go. Sydlik earned a bigger gap, pushing her advantage to 10 seconds, but she too got reeled back in with 10zm to go. As soon as Sydlik came back, Curi attacked AGAIN.
Curi’s advantage got all the way up to 18 seconds with under 7 zilometers to go as the Americans tried to work their way to the front of the Zeloton and slow things up. Of course, as anyway who’s ridden on Zwift knows, the pack has kind of a churning effect, so it is much easier said than done to go to the front and try to keep the pace down.
Curi’s move fizzled out just 0.8 zilometers from the base of the final climb. It was now time for the main event.
The final climb was a total of 1.4 zilometers long, and Moolman-Pasio wasted absolutely no time in sending a shot across the collective bow of the rest of the riders. She attacked almost exactly at the QOM start beacon, pushing 9.5 w/kg as she put in her initial dig. Cecilia Hansen of Sweden and Loes Adegeest of the Netherlands were the first two to answer the bell, with Jacquie Godbe of the U.S. slotted into 4th position.
Hansen and Adegeest caught Moolman-Pasio with 0.9zm to go and wisely sat on the wheel of the defending champion. It is infinitely easier to sit in on a climb on Zwift, and these two women took advantage of that by letting the South African continue to do all the work.
While Zwift has worked its way to the lofty perch of gaining UCI status, folks in the Zwift community are still quick to reminder participants that it is a GAME. And since it’s a game, Zwift races frequently feature power-ups that give you super powers for a brief period of time. Power-ups include an aero helmet that makes you more aero, a feather that makes you lighter, a burrito that allows you to unleash a gassy fart so no one can draft you, and a van that reduces your draft, among others.
Typically, power-ups are awarded at random, forcing riders to hope against hope that they get whatever power-up is necessary to win a given race and then hoarding them when they do get them. For Zwift Worlds, three power-ups were used—draft, aero, and feather—but they were given to riders at specified locations. In the case of the Knockerbocker course, this meant each rider had a feather at their disposal for the final climb.
When they hit the first of the two steep kickers, it looked like Moolman-Pasio might again pull away while deploying her feather power-up, but Hansen put in a big dig on the 15+% incline and kept the leader in check. Zoe Langham also bridged up to make it a group of four with just over 400 meters and one more steep gradient to go. It appeared Langham had to use her power-up to make the bridge, leaving only Adegeest and Hansen fully feathered for the final steep kick.
Experienced Zwift racers know momentum is key—if you’re starting your attack on a hill, it’s too late—and the Dutch rider Adegeest played this truism perfectly. Sitting in fourth wheel at the start of the final kicker, 200 meters from the finish, Adegeest dropped her feather, revved her Wahoo Kickr before the other riders, and zipped past her three competitors midway up the short incline.
Even though the other three riders were matching her power output, it was too late. While Zwift has still not figured out how to animate riders posting up, we did get a shot of the Dutch woman in her pain cave, posting up in disbelief as she pulled off a winning move Marianne Vos would no doubt look at approvingly.
Hansen took 2nd and Langham 3rd. Liz van Houweling of the U.S. rounded out the wide-angle podium after Moolman-Pasio.
Check back Tuesday (ideally) for a look at the Men’s race.