Over 100,000 riders took part in Zwift Academy 2024. Most participants were there simply to build fitness and test their limits, but a smaller group was vying for the big prize: a cycling team contract for the 2025 season!
The field of pro contenders was narrowed to just 8 riders – 4 men and 4 women – and yesterday Zwift announced their names. Here’s what we know about the finalists, plus additional details on where the finals were held and how we can watch!
CANYON//SRAM zondacrypto Generation Finalists
Emily Dixon, Australia
Emily excels in hilly one-day races having taken part in the 2024 UCI Junior Road World Championships, where she came 23rd, and also competed across Europe in Junior Nations Cup events with Team Australia.
Emma Ochoa, Australia
A strong all-rounder and winner of AusCycling’s domestic U19s road racing competition in 2024. Emma also secured a podium position at the 2023 Dirty Warrny gravel race.
Anabelle Thomas, Canada
Having previously ridden for Canada at four Nations Cup races, Anabelle is a strong climber with a Junior national road title already under her belt.
Tjaša Susnik, Slovenia
A talented climber who has already competed at high-profile races such as the Tour of the Ardeche, Tour de l’Avenir and Tour of Guangxi as part of the BTC City Ljubljana Scott squad. Tjaša’s experience is a definite advantage.
Alpecin-Deceuninck Development Team Finalists
Noah Ramsay, Canada
Transitioning to cycling from hockey when he was 16, Noah’s career to date has predominantly been in Cross Country MTB. He is a skilled bike handler having raced for the U23 Canadian XCO World Championship team in 2021.
Friedrich Klein, Germany
Having first taken up mountain biking with his friends in 2020, Friedrich has risen through the ranks quickly. He earned a spot on the Junior XC MTB World Series in 2023 and took part in his first road race in 2024.
Elliot Bain, Great Britain
Having only started cycling in 2021, and competing for the first time last year, the ex-footballer is a strong all-rounder and has a bright future ahead of him.
Mattia Gaffuri, Italy
Returning to the Zwift Academy finals for the second year running, the climber finished second in the 2023 European Climber’s Championships and also competed in the 2021 Giro Next Gen.
What’s Next?
The women’s Zwift Academy Road Finals were recently held in Algarve, Portugal, while the men’s were held in Denia, Spain. All eight finalists integrated directly into both teams’ training camps to tackle a series of challenges – both on and off the bike – which tested their bike handling, fitness, and racecraft, as well as how they respond to trials and fit into each team.
Both teams’ managers then worked with Zwift Academy coaches at Dig Deep Coaching to analyze each finalists’ performance before determining which two riders earned their prestigious pro contracts.
Watch the Finals
The finals will be broadcast by GCN across four weekly episodes, with the first one airing on Saturday, February 15 at 6pm CET (5pm UTC/12pm ET/9am PT).
The winners will be announced in the last episode, airing on March 8.
Did anyone win the Canyon bike?
Yes, there was a guy posting pictures on Zwift subreddit.
How about links to their Zwiftpower profiles, if they even have one? 🙂
I stopped trying to find them, after the first few finalists couldn’t be found. Sorry! Feel free to look them up and share the links here if you’d like. 😀
I don’t see any races done? I see a deeper hole than last year.
Maybe Zwift will handle this better than last year.
Two exist on Strava. One looks like she did the workouts.
https://www.strava.com/athletes/12368810
https://www.strava.com/athletes/52787107
Does that mean that some athletes may not have completed the workouts but were selected based on the preferences of the management of two cycling teams?
I remember some years ago, the finalists had a race on Zwift against each other.
The only constant, is Zwift still pays the advertising fees to GCN.
Highly doubtful. What it DOES mean is we have an incomplete view of these athletes’ past activities, for whatever reason.
Yeah, that would totally defeat the object of the whole program if some riders would just get wildcards. Much more likely that they are riding under pseudonym names, don’t share to Zwift Power and/or have their privacy settings set high. Zwift Power has always been an opt-in third party site/application (yes, I know that Zwift is running the show there now) and I don’t think there has ever been a requirement for a Zwift Academy hopeful to also push their rides to Zwift power or have an open profile for what that’s worth.
Noah https://zwiftpower.com/profile.php?z=451099 , 950 ZRS, 46 races, level 57
Elliot https://zwiftpower.com/profile.php?z=5155370 908 only 4 races but level 94
Mattia https://zwiftpower.com/profile.php?z=1788402 949 15 races
https://zwiftpower.com/profile.php?z=4437275 (Emma Ochoa)
https://zwiftpower.com/profile.php?z=6672013 (Tjasa Susnik)
https://zwiftpower.com/profile.php?z=451099 (Noah Ramsay)
https://zwiftpower.com/profile.php?z=5155370 (Elliot Bain)
https://zwiftpower.com/profile.php?z=1788402 (Mattia Gaffuri)
Others don’t exist in Zwiftpower?
I think it’s pretty clear that ZA is not about scouting elite zwifters for talent. These are all rising, young stars outside of Zwift that are already competing at the international level. Emma for instance has ridden a grand total of 25 km in Zwift over the past year.
That’s fine, and I enjoy watching ZA. I don’t mean to take anything away from these talented, young cyclists, I just really wish Zwift would stop with the charade by making ZA more about “testing” each year and less about building fitness and community engagement. I suffered through the crappy “workouts” and races just to unlock the Aeroad paintjob. I even had to repeat one of the longer “workouts” because it didn’t count for whatever reason. A few years back, I felt like I actually built a bit of fitness with ZA, and I enjoyed the baseline and final ride comparisons.
I hope we get to know about ZA 2025 early. I really want to prepare well this year.
They (and particularly the men) do not look very happy to have been in the finals from those photos….
They are, Watch this GCN documentary:
https://youtu.be/m5RPtIhn8hM?si=EXT-Y24DC5XZ6ioe
They get a free vacation and get to meet Zoe or Matthew. What’s not to like? Besides, they are already jr. pros anyway. Plus, you get a new bike.