This One Tweak Has Made Zwift Games Much More Exciting

Blog #12

When I previewed the format of the second annual Zwift Games last week, I was fairly positive. I had my critiques - the Sprint and Climb Showdowns should matter for the Overall classification, and the Epic Championship is too undervalued - but at the end of the day I thought the format was pretty good.

There was one tweak that I only mentioned in passing though: the introduction of intermediate sprint and K/QOM segments. Here’s what I said in the preview post:

I love giving points for intermediate locations [ ]. So smart. The “primes” last year - where riders won money rather than points - were never that exciting from a fan perspective. It was mostly riders who didn’t have a chance to win money at the finish line going for the primes, so they never mattered much for the overall race. But when the points matter for overall (and stage) standings? Game onnnnn.

But it turns out that my enthusiasm wasn’t enough: after watching the Sprint Championship this weekend, it’s pretty clear that I radically underestimated how much intermediate points locations would change the racing. Here’s how 👇

Format Reminder

Zwift Games consists of five separate stages, and the winner of the Overall Championship is the rider who scores the most points across the five stages. From last week’s preview,¹ here’s the scoring structure:

For each of the five stages, riders will be awarded points based on their position at the finish, starting at 70 and descending by one until last place (so second gets 69 points, third 68, etc.). Each of the first four stages also has one intermediate sprint or K/QOM location where the top three riders receive points (10-5-3).

Stage 5, the Epic Championship, has two intermediate K/QOMs with the same first-three-across-the-line scoring system as the earlier stages.

The upshot here - which I don’t think I fully appreciated until watching the first two stages this weekend - is that the difference at the finish line between first and second; fifth and six; or tenth and eleventh really isn’t that much. This structure doesn’t really incentive winning stages, insofar as the difference between winning and coming second is a mere point.

But the intermediate point locations totally f*&% this up, in the best way possible. Because the differences between finish line places are marginal for riders in the top ten, those 108 points that will be given out for intermediate sprints and climbs are pivotal. Last year, Kathrin Fuhrer won the women’s race by only two points, and Freddy Ovett won the men’s race by only eight. Given those margins, it’s hard to see how intermediate points won’t make a big difference this year.

Race Strategies

But the fact that only three riders receive points at each intermediate location really throws a wrench into the strategy. There is a very real risk of burning a lot of matches and coming up entirely empty, leaving a rider with no intermediate points and nothing left for the finish line. There’s a lot of game theory at the individual level, but at the macro level there are basically two potential outcomes:

• Intermediate points become another forum for the favorites to battle it out to decide the overall winner; or

• Riders who aren’t really in the top-tier of favorites, but are still strong enough to otherwise be finishing in the top 10-30, decide the risk is worth it and cause some chaos.

  • These might be riders like, say, Joel Lewis. Or Thomas Perren. Or Håvard Gjeldnes. Because why the heck not? For this category of men, snagging a few bonus points might be enough to catapult them to the top ten finish overall.

Either way, the intermediate points locations make the racing more exciting for fans. This is for a few reasons:

• The strategy is more complex, which means you get to read annoying articles like this breaking it down 😁;

• It creates excitement in the middle of races that could otherwise get a little monotonous;

• Riders might get a littleeeee more reckless in later stages like the Epic when they need intermediate points to recover in the overall standings (I really hope this happens); and

• Because of all that, there are potentially more riders competing for the Overall Championship.²

So let’s see how it all went down in the first two stages!

The Men’s Sprint Championships

In case you didn’t notice, the names I mentioned above weren’t random. In Stage 1, Lewis soloed away from the peloton for just long enough to take the intermediate points, with Perren and Gjeldnes sprinting for second*³ and third, respectively.⁴ Realistically, if I had to name the top 15 favorites for the overall on the men’s side heading into Zwift Games, none of these three would’ve been in there. Perren and Gjeldnes maybeee slip into the top 20. But these are the sorts of riders for whom gambling for the intermediate sprint makes perfect sense.

Of course, it didn’t really work out for Lewis. He finished in 46th (at the finish line) according to Zwift Power.⁵ But for Perren and Gjeldnes? They finished 15th* and 13th, respectively. And with the bonus points, those are effectively top ten finishes.

In Stage 2, the intermediate points were at the top of Breakaway Brae. Alessandro Poli took a flier about 2.5 km out, but was quickly closed down. Next was Timothy Rugg. He was quickly swallowed back up. But as the peloton hit Breakaway Brae, Rugg went again. Halfway up, Thomas Thrall burst past. A group of five - Jasper Paridaens, Michał Kamiński, Thrall, Adrien Legriffon, and Gjeldnes - came to the line together in that order, with the first three taking the points.

Again, the riders creating chaos here were mostly those outside the group of favorites. Kamiński entered Zwift Games a real chance to win the overall, and Thrall⁶ and Paridaens were legitimate podium contenders. But for Poli, Rugg, Legriffon, and Gjeldnes, using intermediate points to sneak into the top ten would be a real victory. Alas, for Poli, Rugg, and Legriffon, it didn’t really work - none scored points here, and the energy expenditures meant they finished 46th, 49th, and 27th at the finish line, respectively.

But it did for Gjeldnes. He finished 13th and 22nd in the two stages, and with the addition of three bonus points is in a good position to potentially top ten the overall.

For a second, it seemed like it also did for Perren. The five points he won at the intermediate sprint in Stage 1 moved him from eighth to fifth - just far enough to make it to the Sprint Showdown.

Or at least that’s what we thought. But it turns out he had entered his weight incorrectly before Stage 1, and reached out to the commissaires after realizing the mistake to self-report prior to the Showdown.⁷ So. It was fun to watch while it happened, right?

The Women’s Sprint Championship

And now for the complete opposite - the women!

In my preview, I noted how much more top heavy the women’s field is compared to the men.

There are some incredible [female] riders, but the top eight or so are a tier above the rest of the field. In contrast, the men’s peloton is a bit deeper, with maybe 15-20 riders in a similar tier.

The upshot of this is that the top women are more likely to consistently be in the top spots in each stage, whereas the men will shuffle around a bit more and score less points. This is precisely what happened this year, and I think it will happen again.

I also noted that within that tier, there are three riders (Kate McCarthy, Gabriela Guerra, and Fuhrer) that are in a league of their own. It turned out all this was true for the intermediate sprints as well.

Both McCarthy and Fuhrer won 10 intermediate points in Stages 1 and 2, respectively, and as you can see below it’s those points that separate them from their main rival, Guerra. Lou Bates made a valiant breakaway effort in the first stage, but came up short. But in the top-heavy women’s field, it was generally the favorites contesting the intermediate sprints. Look for that to continue, and for Guerra and others with their eyes on the overall to have no choice but to go for these points as well in later stages.

Sprint Championship Results

As of when I’m writing this on Sunday morning, results have not yet been verified by Zwift. But Neal Fryett (after replacing Perren in the finals) and McCarthy took home the Sprint Championships. As for the Overall Championship, here are the standings after the first two stages.⁸

Men

(Obvious caveat here is that Perren’s results won’t hold after the weight issue, and it looks like Fryett will be getting a three point bump as he slides into third in the Stage 1 intermediate sprint after Perren’s points are taken away.)

Zwift Power - Stage 1

Zwift Power - Stage 2

Women

Zwift Power - Stage 1

Zwift Power - Stage 2

One Final Note…

So apparently Jason Osborne, Maddie Le Roux, and a few other higher-profile riders also got wild cards, even though they weren’t on the official start list Zwift had initially published. Like I said last week, I’m all for this sort of stuff. But could you just, like, at least let us know? Following this sport is hard enough as it is - Zwift has a great product here, but they never make it easy on fans.

Also, I can’t even get mad at Stage 1 of the men’s race cutting out at the worst possible time because Dan Lloyd tripped over a cable. That’s just absolutely hilarious 😂

1. Edited slightly for context.

2. Of course, we could get less too if the first scenario happens and the favorites use intermediate sprints to create even more distance from the field.

3. If you watched already, yes yes we will get there!

4. Of course, we didn’t see any of this because the live feed went out. I’m relying entirely on Nathan’s description of the sprint during Stage 2.

5. For all finish line results here I’m using Zwift Power for now. The provisional results published by Zwift don’t break down points at the finish line vs. at intermediate point locations, and they have already removed Perren from Stage 1. So riders generally will move up a place in that stage with Perren gone.

6. Less so after he finished 48th in Stage 1.

7. According to Virtual Velo News, the error was only 200 grams. Props to Perren for the honesty, but that’s such a tough blow. I really feel for him.

8. From the broadcast on YouTube.