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    EventsFeatured

    Zwift Grand Prix Begins with the “Parcours Picker”

    Eric Schlange
    By Eric Schlange
    September 22, 2022
    LAST UPDATED September 23, 2022
    13

    As explained in a previous post, this season’s top-level Zwift racing look very different from previous years. Now decoupled entirely from Zwift Racing League, the “Zwift Grand Prix” series is happening each Friday at 6pm UTC, with men featured one week and women the next over 6 rounds.

    Tomorrow (Friday) at 6pm UTC the Zwift Grand Prix kicks off with its first race for the men, in a format named the “Parcours Picker”. (Women will race their Parcours Picker next Friday.)

    This race actually consists of 5 different events. Teams will select 5 riders to take part in 5 different races (one rider per race) on different routes utilizing different formats. The winning team will have the highest total points across all 5 races.

    Each race will feature one rider per team, so a total of 12 riders overall per race. Where applicable, PowerUps will be available to add further strategy to the races – but information on PowerUp structure is being furnished to the teams directly and wasn’t available at the time of this publication.

    Race Details

    Race 1: Neokyo Crit Course

    • Points Race
    • Distance: 8.58km
    • Points will be available for the first 3 riders (each lap) across the Alley and Castle Park sprints
      • Alley Sprint (3,2,1) x 2
      • Castle Park Sprint (3,2,1) x 2

    Race 2: Sea To Tree

    • Scratch Race
    • Distance: 3.84km
    • Points will be available at the finish line only
      • Finish Line (12-1 for 1st to 12th place)

    Race 3: Tour of Tewit Well

    • Scratch Race
    • Distance: 10.74km
    • Points will be available for the first 6 riders across the line at the climb arch and finish line.
      • Climb Arch (6,5,4,3,2,1)
      • Finish Line (6,5,4,3,2,1)

    Race 4: Innsbruckring

    • Individual TT
    • Distance: 9.03km
    • Points will be available based on overall time and for the fastest through the sprint segment
      • Overall Time (12-1 for 1st to 12th place)
      • Innsbruck Sprint (2 bonus points available for the fastest rider through the segment)

    Race 5: Downtown Dolphin

    • Points Race
    • Distance: 9.38km
    • Points will be available each lap at the Climb Arch and then once at the finish line
      • Climb Arch (4,3,2,1) x 5
      • Finish Line (4,3,2,1)

    Note: total race points will accrue across the 5 races and series points will be awarded according to each team’s final points tally.

    Watch Live

    Each Friday’s races will be livestreamed with commentary on Zwift’s YouTube the Zwift Live Facebook channels. Watch tomorrow’s event below:

    Some of the racers will also be livestreaming their races. Tuning into these personal streams can sometimes be much more interesting than the main broadcast! Here are the links we know of:

    • Velocio Team Stream (English) – twitch.tv/Bouchard
    • Hexagon pb Saris (French) – twitch.tv/styrostv
    • Team Italy Live (Italian) – twitch.tv/teamitalylive
    • TSBiker (Dutch/Flemish) – twitch.tv/tsbiker
    • PTz Live (Portugese) – facebook.com/bjafonso
    • タムロリエ-Rie Tamuro – youtube.com/channel/UC3Dw1nzbYi9DLcE0RaXcRDQ
    • NeXT pb Enshored (English) – twitch.tv/barney_nz

    Full Season Schedule

    Round 1 – Parcours Picker
    Men: Friday, September 23 @ 6 pm UTC
    Women: Friday, September 30 @ 6 pm UTC

    Round 2 – Team Elimination Omnium
    Men: Friday, October 7 @ 6 pm UTC
    Women: Friday, October 14 @ 6 pm UTC 

    Round 3 – Squad Skirmish
    Men: Friday, October 21 @ 6 pm UTC
    Women: Friday,  October 28 @ 6 pm UTC

    Round 4 – Points Elimination Reverse
    Men: Friday, November 18 @ 7 pm UTC
    Women: Friday, November 25 @ 7 pm UTC

    Round 5 – Team Elimination Omnium
    Men: Friday, December 2 @ 7 pm UTC
    Women: Friday, December 9 @ 7 pm UTC 

    Round 6 – Individual Relay
    Men: Friday, January 13 @ 7 pm UTC
    Women: Friday, January 20 @ 7 pm UTC

    Finals
    Men and Women: Late March (TBD)

    Men and Women: Late March (TBD)

    Questions or Comments?

    Share below!

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      Eric Schlange
      Eric Schlangehttp://www.zwiftinsider.com
      Eric runs Zwift Insider in his spare time when he isn't on the bike or managing various business interests. He lives in Northern California with his beautiful wife, two kids and dog. Follow on Strava

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      13 Comments
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      Via
      Via
      8 months ago

      5 races, how long will this last in the evening, please ?

      0
      Reply
      Eric Schlange
      Author
      Top Member
      Eric Schlange(@eschlange)
      8 months ago
      Reply to  Via

      An hour or less I’d wager. I think the goal of these events is to keep them under an hour.

      0
      Reply
      Tomas
      Tomas
      8 months ago

      I still miss the ZRL Premier Division. I found it super exciting and inspiring to watch the “pros” take on the course we would race the next day in the community. It also gave a great sense of progression through the community and into the elite levels.

      7
      Reply
      Tomas
      Tomas
      8 months ago
      Reply to  Tomas

      That said I do like that Zwift is trying to be creative with race formats and race types.

      We really need more race types in the game for the community. Would be great to have native points races, elimination races, madison races and more. (Both on track and road).

      1
      Reply
      Carsten Re. from Germany
      Carsten Re. from Germany
      8 months ago
      Reply to  Tomas

      100% agree … it would be great to have different race formats on Zwift, especially in a Velodrome : sprint tournaments, elimination races and MADISON events !!! … hopefully ZHQ is working on this … dreaming is allowed 😎

      0
      Reply
      Martin
      Martin(@martin)
      8 months ago

      Looks like “tiny races” format to me 😉

      0
      Reply
      Eric Schlange
      Author
      Top Member
      Eric Schlange(@eschlange)
      8 months ago
      Reply to  Martin

      Great minds think alike!

      0
      Reply
      Carsten Re. from Germany
      Carsten Re. from Germany
      8 months ago
      Reply to  Martin

      I thought the same … like a Team Omnium … but it worked well yesterday because now breakaways made sense and had a much better chance to be successful … was fun to watch

      0
      Reply
      Andrew
      Andrew
      8 months ago

      Seems like ridiculously short races for pro level riders, surely they can all pretty much ride at max power/hr for 3-10km, and only 12 riders per race sounds pretty sparse.
      Will maybe check it out over the weekend, but Friday evening racing with tiny distances and virtually no racers probably won’t be grabbing too many people to watch live

      0
      Reply
      Eric Schlange
      Author
      Top Member
      Eric Schlange(@eschlange)
      8 months ago
      Reply to  Andrew

      It’s all about making it more interesting to viewers. Nobody wants to watch a long Zwift race. And nobody wants to watch a mob of 100 riders make their way around Watopia, either.

      At least, that’s how I feel. And it appears that’s also what Zwift is hearing from others.

      Racing on Zwift opens up a completely different set of race scenarios compared to IRL racing. It seems this season Zwift is really leaning into that and trying to come up with some uniquely esports propositions. I think the first week went well.

      2
      Reply
      David
      David
      8 months ago
      Reply to  Eric Schlange

      Having watched the new format last night I thought it worked well. The differing races, styles needed and mix of riders seemed to me to make things more exciting than 1 race of 30k+. Seeing differing strategies play out due to the short length of races was interesting and also the fact that all riders were on their own, feels like it gives more chance to everyone rather than teams that have lots of strong riders in 1 race. Added to the wider strategy element where teams have to pick which rider for which event, it does give more options… Read more »

      0
      Reply
      Andrew
      Andrew
      8 months ago
      Reply to  Eric Schlange

      Having given it a watch I must admit it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be, however: 1) 3 of the 5 races they couldn’t even organize showing from the start/gun and we joined with it already going 2) It only took 1500m of the first race for Zwift to start handing out the wrong power-ups 3) Dropped connections still affecting even the ‘Pro’ races where they’re all using wired connections so the 1 rider per team approach doesn’t work unless they sort that stuff out for all of us 4) There were a multitude of… Read more »

      0
      Reply
      Mark Middleton
      Mark Middleton(@buj3)
      7 months ago

      Elimination races on Crit city were fantastic. Cant wait for these to filter down to us mere mortals. Perhaps the next Zwift Insider race project?

      0
      Reply
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