Who Will Win Zwift World Series?
Blog #20
Four of the five stages in the inaugural Zwift World Series (“ZWS”) are now complete, and the fifth and final stage is set for this Thursday, April 24 at 1710 UTC (men) and 1840 (women).
Prior to the final stage of Zwift Games, I published a post looking at the GC standings heading in, analyzing what riders would need to do to take home the title, and making some predictions as to what we might see. I figured I’d do something similar today heading in to the ZWS finale. So tighten up your shoes, and let’s sprint through what we might see on Thursday!
The Stage and Format
Okay, so maybe a sprint metaphor wasn’t the best way to lead in this article: the final stage is very much for the climbers. Here’s the profile:
The course includes four climbs. Each of these climbs is individually enough to drop all but the best climbers in the field.1 Put them together, and there’s going to be carnage in the peloton on Thursday.
Epic KOM Reverse (6.3 km at 5.9%): Right off the bat, the non-elite climbers of the world in good GC positions - think Jasper Paridaens, Neal Fryett, Lisa Hermansson, and Mika Söderström - are going to have to make a choice: try to stay with the leaders, or ride tempo to avoid blowing up in the climbs to come?
Epic KOM Reverse isn’t crazy hard, but it’s just a little too much for punchier riders to comfortably match w/kg with the climbers. Expect the men to tackle it in about 13-14 minutes and the women in the 15:30-16 minute range.
The Grade (3.52 km at 8.6%): To the extent the non-elite climbers make it to the foot of The Grade with the front pack - either because the pace is tempered on the first climb or because they spend their bullets trying to keep up - expect them to get dropped on The Grade.
In the finale of Zwift Games, we saw riders tackle only half of The Grade. And even then, on the men’s side, Fryett and Paridaens were dropped. It’ll be even harder to maintain contact when they’ve got to do the full thing.
This climb should take about 9 minutes for the men, and 11 for the women.
Epic KOM (9.5 km at 3.9%): Epic is the easiest climb of the day, with plenty of opportunities to draft. I’d expect whoever is left in the front or in the peloton - to the extent there still are groups - to mostly stay together here as riders try to conserve energy for the final climb of the day. Or riders will have so many kilojoules in the legs at this point that it ends up being attritional. Who knows.
Anyway, we’re looking at 17+ minutes for the men and 19+ for the women.
Radio Tower KOM (1.16 km at 12.8%): If you’ve ever climbed the Epic and didn’t preview the route in advance, you know the dismay and sinking feeling in your gut when your avatar decides to turn into radio tower rather than just take the easy way out and descend. I imagine a lot of riders are going to have that same feeling at the end of this final stage (though I hope they at least, like, know it’s coming).
The men can tackle Radio Tower in 3:30-4 minutes, and the women in 4:30-5. But this is a brutal climb, and who knows who will have the legs at the end of one of the longer days in pro cycling esports.
So, you can see why the stage favorites are going to be pure climbers here. But you might remember that for GC, it’s a pure points formula. The winner of each stage gets 75 points, second 74, third 73, and so on and so forth.2 And unlike in Zwift Games where there were intermediate K/QOM and sprint points that had an outsized impact on GC, that isn’t the case for ZWS.3 So what can we expect from GC heading into the final stage?
The GC Race
First things first: who is going to show up?
We’ve already talked about how poorly Zwift has managed ZWS this year. But it’s actually becoming a massive problem. On both the men’s and women’s side, there were 46 riders on the start list for Stage 4. Only 31 men and 36 women ended up racing. By my count, only 20 men and 11 women have raced all four stages thus far.4 That’s… kind of pathetic, I’m not gonna lie. Zwift has really dropped the ball here.5
So the threshold assumption underpinning all the below analysis is that each of the riders I discuss will, you know, actually show up for Stage 5. I certainly hope they all will, but I have no idea. So with that caveat in mind, let’s get to it.
Men
Unfortunately, the men’s race is pretty much over. Congrats to Ollie Jones. Here’s the top ten heading into the final stage:
Jones isn’t the best climber in the world - I certainly am not picking him to win the stage - but he’s better than or at least on par with the riders within spitting distance of him.
Paridaens is the only one with a real shot just based on the math (he would have to finish seven spots ahead of Jones to win GC). But this finale is an even worse course for Paridaens than the final Zwift Games stage, and even that was a bit too much for him. He’s an excellent rider, and I’ve written before about how much I was pulling for him in Zwift Games, but this is just too much climbing.
I suppose you could say Pirotte, Fryett, and Hug have a shot as well. But once you really start looking at the math, you realize it isn’t going to happen. They’d have to finish 16, 17, and 19 spots in front of Jones, respectively, to exceed his points total. That’s a tall order. If you are forcing me to pick (and, after all, isn’t that the point of this blog?), I’d take Hug over Jones in this stage, put close to even money on Pirotte, with maybe a slight advantage to Jones, and take Jones over Fryett. But any advantage Hug or Pirotte have is marginal, and certainly not 15+ spots.
So assuming Jones shows up and doesn’t have a mechanical, GC is his. It’ll be another victory in an already impressive array of palmares for the third best male virtual cyclist of all time.
Women
Unfortunately, the women’s side is more or less decided as well. Congrats to Kathrin Fuhrer:
Kulchinsky is incredible, but it’s hard to see her placing nine spots better than Fuhrer. None of the other riders in the top ten will beat Fuhrer in this stage either, with the notable exception of Gabriela Guerra. And what a loss it is that Guerra’s Stage 3 victory ended up getting annulled. Had that result stood, she would have 299 points entering Stage 5, and Fuhrer would have 296.6 Now that would’ve been a fun finale.
But alas, this one is even more over than the men. Fuhrer is the top-ranked female virtual cyclist of all time, but this season she’s been a distinct third best behind Kate McCarthy and Guerra. It’s good to see her get a signature win after having come up a bit short in some other big races this year.
Okay, maybe not Epic.
Tiebreaker is better finish in the final stage.
Yeah, yeah there are intermediate “prime” locations where rider can earn bonus cash (in other ZWS stages, but not this one), but I’ve explained before why that format is sort of boring from a fan perspective.
Completed without being annulled, which is an issue we’ve talked about ad nauseam.
It also makes previewing the stage itself sort of pointless. For the women, Kate McCarthy, Illi Gardner, Fuhrer, and Guerra are probably the four favorites. But which of them will show up? For the men, I’d say Michał Kamiński, Ruben Dhondt, Vujasin, and Lennert Teugels. But, same question. Sort of tough to analyze without knowing that.
One less than she actually has because Guerra’s first place finish in Stage 3 would have knocked Fuhrer down to second, worth 74 points.