The transformed Premier League has turned into the Zwift Grand Prix. There are 6 rounds that run from September 23rd to January 20th, with Men and Women racing a week apart in an equal distance, equal payout, equal time coverage series.
As a quasi-contributor to Zwift Insider and a rider/director of a league team, I wanted to give an unfiltered behind-the-scenes look at the action. Look for a recap after each round of the Grand Prix.
Round 2 of the Zwift Grand Prix was a format was called “Team Elimination Omnium”. Not the clearest name for a new type of Zwift racing, but it is a name. In “Team Elimination Omnium” the whole field of 60 riders (12 teams, 5 riders per team) started the race together. But just to start. In this three-race series the field goes from 60 racers to 30 and then down to 10 for the final race.
There is one wrinkle in the format in that you can win a Golden Ticket at an early sprint point which will get you through to the next round automatically. They awarded the top 5 at the sprint point in race one and to the top 3 at the sprint point in race 2. So basically to advance in race one you needed a top 25 at the finish or a Golden Ticket. For race two you needed a top 7 or one of the 3 Golden Tickets. The final round was an elimination race in Crit City. Last across the sprint or finish line each lap was eliminated till there were three racers left to sprint for the win.
It’s a bit complicated, but it is a really intriguing race format. Lots of opportunity for strategy. Risk and reward. Severe consequences for failing. The rider who wins will be an exceptional Zwifter. This race format is being considered for the UCI e-sports worlds. If the goal is to create compelling racing and also reward great Zwiftcraft and watts, this format is spot on.
What got a bit wonky however is the fact that this is a team race. Why that changes things is that the winner of the race is the team with the most points. Scoring the most points and winning the race were not the same thing. An additional layer of confusion was added in that scoring was based on a unique number system for each round. In round 1 the top 30 scored 20 points. Then the points went down to 1 over the next 20 riders. There were no points for the golden tickets. So you could advance without scoring and with the effort required to get a golden ticket, you were very unlikely to score any points at the finish. In round 2 the top 10 got 21 points then down by one for each place after. In the final round Winner scored 9 points with 10th place scoring no points. So if you were the unfortunate soul to get eliminated first in the last round, you got nothing (FORESHADOWING HERE).
Race 1
The first race was on the UCI Richmond worlds course. Perhaps my favorite Sagan win of all time was on this course. It is also a very famous/infamous course on Zwift. Not a course for pure sprinters, not a course for pure climbers. It’s hard for everyone. The Golden ticket sprint was on Broad Street, the last sprint point before descending to the climbs. So getting top 5 here would let you skip the incredibly hard finishing section. But the winner of this sprint was either going to be the winner of the sprint lottery or perhaps a reward for a very hard do-or-die break. It might be easy to think about just going for top 25 but in a field as talented as the Grand Prix field, top 25 is no easy feat.
A sleepy start to the race was broken by an all-in attack by Luca Vertallito (Team Castelli pb Elite). He opened a good gap and the first response was Spencer Seggebruch (Coalition Alpha) and Riccardo Panizza (Team Castelli pb Elite) who tried to go across. With 1km to go the pack opened up and more tried to bridge. Everything got lined out and the three attackers started to break and get swallowed up. As the race hit the line only Seggebruch held on by half a bike length to take a golden ticket and the last 4 spots went to Nielsen, Mehl, Van Den Eeckhaut, and Havot.
Seggebruch won his gamble and was able to take the finish easy and finish several minutes down. Likely saving some kjs, but his effort to win was substance. Those that tried to get across or jumped too early and faded, like my teammate Yumeto (Velocio) paid the price and finished out of contention and without points.
The rest of race 1 placed out as usual. Libby and 23rd Street were very hard and the finish climb and finish straight were a boxing match. There was a bit of a powerup lottery here as there was supposed to be Aero, Draft, Invisibility, and Ghost but it ended up being Aero, Draft, Feather, or NOTHING. I was unfortunate enough to go no powerup twice, get two trucks for the climbs, and then no powerup for the final. The final climb to the finish saw everyone with a feather go for it. Then over the top the trucks and aero powerups went out in mass.
I knew this was a race finish that you really couldn’t come back on and you needed to climb that final pitch on Governor’s Street towards the front. If you sag it, it’s really hard to make up big gaps. I followed the feathers up the climb and when we got over the top I was in 5th on Duffy Jr’s (NeXT eSport pb Enshored) wheel. He and nearly everyone else dropped powerups and I went from 5th with 280m to go to looking like I was going to get swarmed and pooped out past qualifying. It was very disheartening to see a sea of riders with powerups blow by. Thankfully, I held on and finished 19th. That Duffy Jr wheel I was on? He won convincingly.
Race 2
The second race was on Surrey Hills. Talk about infamous courses. The modified course does Fox Hill and finishes at the top of Leith Hill. The 3 Golden Tickets available were for top 3 over Fox Hill. The second race started about 5 minutes after the finish of race 1.
Personally, I totally spaced out and missed the banner dropping and had to chase back on after giving the pack a head start. Not a recommended strategy.
To start, Timothy Rugg (Wahoo Le Col) hit out to get a gap before the first climb. With tired legs, a smaller pack, and general fear of the difficult course it was a bold but also smart move. Unfortunately for him the pack surged the bottom half of the climb and caught him, but then the pack sat up. Seizing on this lull Dan Jamrozik (Velocio) jumped and got a gap. The pack did not respond and Dan took the first golden ticket by a large margin. Behind Mäding (Wahoo Le Col) and Vujasin (Coalition Alpha) executed a perfect sprint over the unmotivated pack to take the last two Golden Tickets.
The pack descended together but the gloves came off early on Leith Hill. With over 5km to go Turek (NeXT eSport pb Enshored) attacked on the early slopes and Teugels (ABUS – Le Col) followed. Behind Zanasca (Team Castelli pb Elite), S. Van Aelst (ABUS – Le Col) and Maertens (Toyota Cryo-RDT) bridged up. If you were to list the best climbers on Zwift that is just about all of them.
Personally, I was right there when they went across and decided to sit up and let the pack chase. I was sick all week and didn’t trust myself to do any work and to commit so early. It was a terrible mistake.
Duffy and Dawson attacked as the pack sat up and it dramatically changed the dynamic of the race. There were now 7 guys up the road and just about everyone in the pack had a teammate up the road. With only 7 advancing it made the race 100% up the road. The pack slowed more and the gaps exploded.
With a kilometer to go the pack was almost 40 seconds down on the leader Teugels. But the light of hope wasn’t fully out. Duffy Jr started to fade. If the pack could catch him one spot was up to advance to round three. Knowing the pack wasn’t going to try and chase their teammates I had no choice but to set the pace and hope I could pull away. I was able to pull Duffy back but Nehr (NeXT eSport pb Enshored) and Alvarado (Wahoo Le Col) blew by with exceptional finish speed to power away with Nehr taking the final spot. Personally, it was very disappointing, but it was a very exciting finish. A gloves-off battle on a savagely hard climb. A true donnybrook.
Race 3
The third race was a Crit City elimination race. A miss and out styled race where the last one across the sprint line or the lap line was kicked out of the race. After 7 eliminations, the last three raced to the finish to sort the top three. With everyone having to sprint it becomes a survival of the fittest. Who can keep jumping hard but also who can time their sprint consistently. Easy to jump early, easy to jump late.
In the first sprint everyone accelerated hard and the first one out was Jamrozik. The first to feel the pain of the perma-ghost, deleted from the race.
As the race progressed we saw early jumps, late jumps, and dead legs get riders eliminated. By the fourth lap the final selection was made of Vujasin (Coalition Alpha), Teugels (ABUS – Le Col), and Dawson (Wahoo Le Col). Coming off the sprint and into the small downhill Vujasin attacked through the group, dropped an anvil powerup and laid down the law. A brilliant move to take the win.
The interesting part of all this was, although Lionel won the race, his team ended up 5th. This was because of the point structure. By advancing with Golden Tickets and not riding to the finish with the front group points were not scored. Saving energy made winning easier, but also made for less points scored. I like that pay off, as you give up something to get something, but really did you get much? Because that brilliant ride by Lionel only scored him 9 points.
NeXT eSport pb Enshored played the game of numbers, skipped the Golden Tickets, and maximized points to win the race overall. It didn’t feel like they won, that was squarely on the shoulders of Vujasin, but it was Next that played the points the best. Either way every round was exciting and full of compelling and tactical racing occured. The days of massive group blob sprints are over. The Grand Prix is turning out Zwift unique, but road racing exciting races. Love it.
Final Results
Watch the Live Stream
What’s Next?
The next Men’s race is on October 21 at 2pm EDT. Watch it below:
wpDiscuz
