In the build-up to December 9th’s 2020 UCI Cycling Esports World Championships, Zwift + WTRL have announced the “Zwift Nations Challenge” – a country-based race unlike anything seen before! Here are the details…
The Big Idea
Zwifters race the 50km/31 miles 2020 UCI Cycling Esports World Championships course (Figure 8 Reverse) finishing at the Watopia KOM, with the aim of completing the race in the shortest time. Nations will then be ranked on an aggregate time to determine the top three nations.
How Will It Work?
Zwift has selected the top 22 countries by Zwift subscription count (see list below). Each of these countries will have 2 events in which riders can participate. (An additional 2 events for the Rest of The World will also take place.)
For most countries, events will take place on December 5th and 6th at 11am and 6pm local time, unless of course your country spans multiple time zones. See event schedule at zwift.com/events/tag/nationschallenge
The fastest 10% and slowest 10% of times will be discounted and the average time for your country calculated. So riders should work together in their events to achieve the fastest possible times!
Results will be announced Tuesday, December 8.
Country List
The following countries will have dedicated events in this competition:
- Australia
- Austria
- Belgium
- Canada
- Colombia
- Denmark
- France
- Germany
- Ireland
- Italy
- Japan
- New Zealand
- Norway
- Poland
- Portugal
- South Africa
- Spain
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- The Netherlands
- United Kingdom
- United States
There will also be two events for the rest of the world, so riders who are not in one of the countries above can still participate.
Choosing Your Country
You must set your nationality in your Zwift Profile before participating in the corresponding event. Any riders racing an event not associated with their profile setting will not contribute to the results, unless it’s one of the “Rest of the world” events. (Of course, your presence in the event may boost the draft effect for others – but your time will not be used in calculating the national average.)
Riders can take part in multiple events! Perhaps you are a Brit living in the USA, or a South African living in France. You can ride in two or more events – just make sure you change your profile’s nationality setting before jumping into the event.
Important Rules
The following rules can be found on WTRL’s Nations Challenge page:
- To be included as a Country Representative in the Zwift Nations Challenge you must:
- Have a fully registered ZwiftPower account (Click Here for How To)
- Set your Nationality within your Zwift Profile to reflect the country you would like to represent
- Enter one or both of your country’s events on either the 5th or 6th December
- At least 100 riders must take part per country for the time to count
- The fastest 10% and slowest 10% of times will be discounted from the average time calculation
- This is not a race by ability or gender. It will be a mass start and you should aim to help your fellow country men and women – the bigger the peloton the faster it moves
- Riders flaunting the rules, exhibiting poor sportsmanship, or riding unrealistically will be removed from the race results and will not contribute to their country’s results directly
More Info
For more information, visit WTRL’s Nations Challenge page.
Questions or Comments
Share below!
Sounds fun to ride events for two countries but as a Euro in the US, 11AM CET would mean 4AM CT in the US..
So maybe I have to change my Zwift flag for a weekend and race for the US 🙂
“Races take place at 11 am on Saturday and at 6 pm on Sunday. Those are local times. Live in a country with multiple time zones, like the US and Australia? We’ll use CST: UTC -6) in the US and ACST (UTC +9.30) for Australia.”
Except that then:
“SATURDAY, DECEMBER 5TH
12:00PM GMT
Nations Challenge // Great Britain”
I mean… how hard is it to get this right?
These rules are either a bit vague, or just ask to be misused. First thing that comes to mind is whether you should ask people that are dropped from the main pack and outside the top100 to leave the event to have a better average time. And if all people in the event (apart from those 10% at the top and bottom) always count, there is nothing stopping a country to enter the event of another country with a significant bunch and ride the event slowly, hence affecting the average time. It would make more sense to me to: Disallow… Read more »
I hope and believe that people will treat this as the piece of non-serious fun which it is. I doubt there could realistically be the cooperation or desire to manipulate the results the way you suggest. Perhaps the mass sabotage, in theory…that could be avoided by not counting times which are unrealistically slow. The problem with your second bullet is that it would hugely advantage countries with more participants (and therefore a faster top 100), whereas this is really meant to be based on an average for a just-for-fun comparison.
I am on z power currently planning to do the event and saving for smart trainer now has I want to get off z power as soon as possible. With the global pandemic not eveyone has access to a smart trainer/other power meter sources due to lack of global supply vs demand issue. Or was not in a postion to get one due to sudden economic fall out and getting by with their older classic trainers till they can get a smart trainer. So back off on the z power issues and just accept the reality of the situation the… Read more »
11am start time. In Australia? During summer? Bit too toasty warm for me at that time of the day so I shall help my country by not racing and not blowing out the overall average time.
Just choose another nationality you like for the weekend 😉
Yes, these events should be treated like a fun race and not be taken too seriously as I agree there are too many uncontrolled variables, like those Robin mentioned earlier.
But I’m looking forward to it, being curious how it will be raced as a mix of all different abilities. However, I don’t expect too much group work between categories there – might more or less be treated like a normal race…
So, if you currently have England, Scotland, Wales, or N.I. as your nationality, do you have to change it to UK to race for GB? (Let’s ignore the fact that having ‘GB’ leaves N.I. out in the cold for a moment).
Makes sense – it’s the World Champs, not the Commonwealth Games – and that’s what pro cyclists from NI, Wales, Scotland, the Isle of Mann, etc. all do when they train and compete yogether for Team GB in the Worlds.
The country included in the list is UK ( so any of the 4 countries) not GB
Ah, great days for The Netherlands and Belgium. On Dec 5th and 6th it is Sinterklaas.
Is there a link to actually sign up for this event? I’m not seeing it- only a link to the rules.
Just added it above, as they just added the events today! Here you go: https://www.zwift.com/events/tag/nationschallenge
WTRL’s page says that you just need a ZwiftPower account. But the Zwift.com page says you “must have both WTRL and Zwift Power accounts.”
Any idea which is right?
I’d trust WTRL before Zwift, since WTRL is organizing it!
I guess that users outside of these countries do not count? I am actually offended by this, as a long time paying Zwift subscriber this stings. Either you do it all the way or don’t do it at all! any country that has a Zwift country flag should be included. Zwift is literally saying that non “first world” countries are irrelevent on their platform. Thanks Zwift
Well, they ARE holding an event for riders outside of the selected countries.
Perhaps one concern is that countries with a low turnout may have skewed results?
Eric, how would they know if those countries can’t enter? and what if Spain only has 2 valid entries (for argument sake), what then? So why not only accept results from countries that meet a certain threshold? again, either go all the way or not at all. Currently it alienates many countries and makes them feel like second class citizens. Not exactly how you want to treat paying customers.
The country list (as explained above) is pulled from the top 22 countries in terms of subscribers. So there will be plenty of participants in all the chosen countries, I can promise you that!
so what happens to those subscriptions not in the top 22 countries? Too bad? that applies to every Caribbean country, most African countries and small Asian countries. It just gives off the feeling that those other countries do not count. So, for the sake of argument, what are the demographics of those countries :)? But it is what it is. Thanks for responding Eric. and good job beating Chris Pritchard 🙂
Will individual results be posted to Zwiftpower or is this essential just a group ride at speed with one “average” time calculated on Tuesday?
Yeah, the events are on ZwiftPower as races, so I assume results will show up there. Don’t expect it to be divided up by category, though…
Does anyone know if a heart rate monitor is required? This is my first race and I have set up all my accounts etc, but don’t have a monitor.
The rules are above. No HR needed.
Thanks!
Any word on whether there’s reward jerseys or similar for taking part?
Would have liked to have done this but afternoon and evening doesn’t work. Would have been nice to have a morning event scheduled for EST USA.
So is the winning country going to be announced sometime or is it just what is already on ZP?
ah found out that results are announced today (8th Dec)
I asked WTRL today for the results, and Martin answered 🙂
“Hi Habib,
I am so sorry! I have just realized I have not added the links and buttons for anyone to be able to see them. As soon as I get back to my web development software, I will get this fixed.
Best Regards
Martin
WTRL Race Control”