Over 150,000 riders took part in the 2021 Zwift Academy Road, resulting in another record-breaking year. Most participants took part simply to build fitness with others, but a smaller group were vying for the big prize: a pro cycling contract for the 2022 season!
Today Zwift announced the 10 finalists for the Zwift Academy Road‘s 2021 program:
CANYON//SRAM Finalists
ZwiftPower Profiles:
Caitlin Conyers, Bermuda
Imogen Alton, Australia
Maud Oudeman, The Netherlands
Rachael Wales, Australia
Willemijn Prins, The Netherlands
Alpecin-Fenix Finalists
ZwiftPower Profiles:
Alex Bogna, Australia
Byron Munton, South Africa
Cooper Sayers, Australia
Mads Rahbek, Denmark
Sam Hill, Australia
What’s Next?
These finalists will travel to a combined training camp in Mallorca, Spain, where team riders and staff of CANYON//SRAM and Alpecin-Fenix will be present. For finals week at the camp, these 10 athletes will put in outdoor efforts on Mallorca’s famed climbs, but also test their grit in Zwift races and take part in off-the-bike challenges.
GCN will be broadcasting a series of five films released to capture the action of finals week. The two winners will be announced in the final film on December 17, 2021.
Power Numbers
Based on the ZwiftPower profiles linked above, the average women’s FTP is 4.52 w/kg, and the average men’s is 5.91w/kg. (This is calculated by taking 95% of each rider’s 20-minute power.)
Impressive!
All of these riders are clearly exceptional athletes. Here are two we’ll be watching closely in the finals:
- Willemijn Prins, who became the youngest-ever Zwift National Champion when she won the race for The Netherlands in 2018 at 14 years of age. She is by far highest-ranked and most experienced Zwift racer of the 5 women.
- Sam Hill with his huge 6.8 w/kg (476 watts) 20-minute power. He’s also (by far) the highest-ranked Zwift racer of the 5 men.
Good luck to all the finalists!
Lol, Eric, I was 14 when I became champion, but that is just a detail.
Corrected above!
Australian Sam Hill? After beating everyone in Downhill and the Enduro World Series he is now starting to conquer road biking too!? 😆
Might have a look on the dual recording of that 6.8wkg effort from Sam…
Something definitely funny going on with the data for that TT. Overall, the KICKR had 6.7% higher average than his Favero Assioma Pedals. The power numbers were a closer match (albeit KICKR still higher) before the climb, then the KICKR is 7.4% higher all the way up the Alpe.
My kickr is also 7% higher than my Assioma pedals.
Yep it was very frustrating as I could see the power discrepancy while I was riding. Headunit connected to the pedals, Laptop connected to the Kickr.
I was still satisfied with my secondary source of power.
I didn’t do the TT again, as I poured everything into it metaphorically speaking. Beta-alanine loading, bi-carb protocol, a full one week taper, music so loud my ears were ringing. It’s not something I couldve just done again the next day. I also made sure I weighed in at my Zwift weight that morning just in case.
I dual recorded every single workout for ZA this year and it is all visible on my Zwift Power account. Every other workout was fine. It was just really annoying that the power discrepancy was so off for the TT.
That sucks to pour everything into that TT and walk away without a result. The pedal powers numbers looked amazing. Good luck, I look forward to catching the GCN broadcast.
No worries. Would smash most of us either if you used the pedals or the kicker – still crazy strong!
I’d be really interested in knowing everyone’s theories as to why every single year there is a huge portion of the academy finalists that are (for the men at least) from either Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.
Is there an inherent southern hemisphere bias created by the timing of the academy every year (august/september)?
I have a hard time believing that the proportion of finalists coming from these countries is representative of the overall zwift population. Always kinda surprised to see no one from Canada, USA, UK qualifying.
I was of the impression that logistically it was way harder for riders from these countries to join the pro tours so there was a higher proportion of unsigned talent, if your that good in the uk chances are your already signed to someone therefore ineligible for ZA