Blog #2: The Emerging Triumvirate of Women's eCycling
How the Fuhrer, Guerra, and McCarthy rivalry is coming to define the sport
Quick note before we dive in: the below post assumes at least some knowledge of the Pro E Cycling ranking system, which you can read about on our website. In addition, we are a reader-supported publication, and subscribing goes a long way to keeping the blog up and running. You can use the link below to make sure you receive future posts as they are released! Now, with that out of the way, let’s get to the good stuff.
The history of women’s virtual cycling has gone through several eras. In the beginning (or at least shortly after the beginning) there was Team Heino. Sporting a roster that a different times included Cecilia Hansen, Louise Houbak, Alice Lethbridge, and Vicki Whitelaw - four of the top eight female riders of all time - Heino cleaned up from 2020 to 2022, taking home the first four editions of the Zwift Premier Division. Indeed, Heino was so dominant that they didn’t even lose a stage in the first two of those races.
That isn’t to say that there wasn’t competition. The likes of Lou Bates, Kristen Kulchinsky, Katheryn Curi, Illi Gardner, Beth McIver, and Loes Adegeest began to make their names during this era, and as the sport professionalized other teams emerged to challenge Heino. In the fifth edition of the Premier Division, Wahoo Le Col finally knocked off Heino, with Saris | NoPinz tying with Heino for second. By the start of the 2022-2023 season, Heino had fractured, and the first season of Zwift Grand Prix ushered in a level parity that has existed ever since.1
But it seems like that mighttt be changing, with a new trio of female riders developing a rivalry that may come to define the near future of the sport. For the past year, Kathrin Fuhrer, Gabriela Guerra, and Kate McCarthy have gone on a run of success that is unprecedented in the brief history of the sport that shows no signs of abating. Let’s take a closer look.
The Emerging Rivalry
Starting with the most impressive stuff: this season, at least one of Fuhrer, Guerra, or McCarthy has appeared in eight professional races.2 No rider outside of this trio has won any of those races.
The starkest example of the distance between the trio and the rest of the women’s field was at the UCI World Championship in October. McCarthy narrowly won that race over Guerra, coming over the top of her on the final climb to secure gold. A bigger group of women entered the final 400m ramp together, but it didn’t take long for McCarthy, Guerra, and Fuhrer to separate themselves from the group and find themselves alone as the finish line neared. Fuhrer faded, Guerra stayed strong, but McCarthy maintained her 9 w/kg punch just long enough to pull away. Guerra secured silver and Fuhrer bronze, and to be honest throughout the race it never really felt like anyone but those three had a chance to win.
The first three stages of the Zwift World Series played out in a similar fashion, albeit with an extra layer of trainer-related drama to complicate the results.3 McCarthy sat out stage one, and it was Fuhrer and Guerra finishing one-two, respectively, from a group of eight that made it to the line. And frankly, this one was just audacious riding from Fuhrer. After a kicker that leveled off with less than 500m to the finish line, the group settled together to prepare for the sprint finish. Rather than sit on a wheel or take a breath, Fuhrer sat at the front of the group and took off with about 250m remaining. Only Guerra could (barely) hold her wheel, and that was that.
In Stage 2, McCarthy joined the fray, and promptly broke away to win by 33 seconds over Guerra and 1:22 over Fuhrer. Unfortunately, McCarthy had her result annulled due to a trainer malfunction that was - and I cannot stress this enough - not her fault, leaving Guerra with the win and Fuhrer in second. A similar thing happened in Stage 3, this time with Guerra breaking away but having her result annulled for a similar reason (again, not her fault!). That left Fuhrer with the victory in a race McCarthy sat out. But setting the annulments aside - that fiasco is a blog post for another day - between the UCI World Championship and three stages of the Zwift World Series, four of the most competitive races of the year, no rider has finished above any of Fuhrer, Guerra, or McCarthy.
Finally, it won’t be a surprise that of the four Sunday Race Club (SRC) finals that have occurred thus far in the 2024-2025 season,4 McCarthy has won three and Fuhrer the fourth. But at least Fuhrer and Guerra have finished behind other riders in these races: Fuhrer finished a distant (for her) tenth in October; fifth in November behind Merle Brunnee and Kulchinsky; and fourth in December behind Brunnee, while Brunnee finished ahead of Guerra in October. In non-finals SRC races, results have been more mixed, with the likes of Brunnee, Maria Holdcroft, and Brigitte Filensky consistently competing with the trio for the weekly prize money.
How Did We Get Here?
For Fuhrer, dominating the sport isn’t really new. She is the top ranked rider of all-time on Pro E Cycling and is the current number one as well.5 If our rankings aren’t to your taste, she’s number one all time in the MyWhoosh SRC rankings as well. Last season, she had the best season ever by our metrics - male or female - winning the overall Zwift Games Championship, two of its three stages, six of the 12 SRC finals, and cruising to her first Most Valuable Avatar (MVA) by the largest margin ever. So perhaps the real news isn’t that she’s part of this trio, but that she has any competition at all.
Guerra has also had success in previous seasons. She finished second to Fuhrer in the Zwift Games last year while finishing in the top five in each stage. In the Zwift Grand Prix, she podiumed a stage and finished fourth in GC. All that added up to a third place finish in the MVA race behind Fuhrer and Bates. But this year she’s stepped her game up to a different level, overtaken Bates as the number two rider in the world, and has a legitimate shot take home this season’s MVA if she can best Fuhrer and McCarthy in the Zwift Games.
McCarthy, however, has been a surprise, at least insofar as her prior results did not really indicate such a meteoric rise to the top of the sport. She only appeared on the professional scene last season, racing for the Rocacorba Collective in the Grand Prix and finishing a respectable top 15 in two stages. She also took home the SRC finals in August 2024. A good season, to be sure. But not one where you would of guessed she would be winning the UCI World Championship the next year.
How Will this Rivalry Play Out Moving Forward?
No clue! Sorry if you’ve read this far and actually thought we would have answers.6 But here is what we do know:
It’s been a lot of fun to watch thus far this season. Frankly, we needed someone or someones who could go toe-to-toe with Fuhrer.
Moreover, it’s not like there aren’t other riders in the virtual peloton who can challenge and beat this trio. Bates is one year removed from her second Zwift Grand Prix GC win, and her attack, attack, attack style of racing seems conducive to breaking back into this top group of riders, where she has certainly been before. Brunnee has quietly been one of the best racers in the world recently, and Kulchinsky, Mika Söderström, and Arielle Verhaaren have all shown they can race at that level. There are others too, but the point is that there is plenty of talent trying to knock down the trio to make this post look pretty stupid in a couple of months.
And either way it plays out… it’s gonna be pretty awesome? Watching Fuhrer, Guerra, and McCarthy trade blows has been pretty great so far this year. Watching someone else take them down would also be fun. So for virtual cycling fans, it’s a win-win. Good for us!
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We’d be remiss if we didn’t at least nod to Adegeest’s success as the best female rider during this era though. In the period between Wahoo Le Col knocking off Heino in February 2022 and her road career taking off with World Tour road team FDJ - Suez in 2023, Adegeest won back-to-back UCI World Championships and Most Valuable Avatar awards. She’s raced less in the virtual world since signing with FDJ - Suez. Fair enough - hard to blame her - but she’s been missed!
As we define them at proecycling.com. These are the UCI World Championship three stages of the Zwift World Series, and four editions of the monthly Sunday Race Club finals.
In brief, after a series of annulments in Stages 2 and 3 that saw McCarthy (Stage 2) and Guerra (Stage 3) lose wins due to trainer malfunctions outside of their control, Zwift canceled the World Series until those issues could be fixed. We aren’t trying to get into these issues in depth here, but Episode 60 of the Virtual Velo podcast goes into it in some depth.
Pro E Cycling seasons begin in September of each year.
And it’s not particularly close - she has over 1,300 PEC points in the past two years, while Guerra, in second place, has amassed “only” 560.1 in the same period.
For those who haven’t dug into our site too much, we explicitly disclaim any expertise in the sport. We are just fans who think this stuff is pretty cool and follow the sport closely. If you are actually reading this, decent chance you know more about the sport than we do!