Zwift Academy Hot Takes
Blog #10
We are midway through the ninth annual edition of Zwift Academy,1 and I’ve got some takes. Consistent with the general theme of this newsletter, the takes are half baked, possibly wrong, but hopefully, maybe, just possibly, a little bit entertaining.
Before we get to that, GCN has released two of the four episodes in this season of Zwift Academy, with new episodes being released every Saturday. This post contains spoilers, so if you missed the first two episodes, you can watch them before reading here 👇
The Finalists
Quoting entirely from Zwift Insider (except for my addition of ages), here’s some background on the finalists, four on each of the men’s and women’s side:
CANYON//SRAM zondacrypto Generation Finalists
Emily Dixon, Australia [17]
Emily excels in hilly one-day races having taken part in the 2024 UCI Junior Road World Championships, where she came 23rd, and also competed across Europe in Junior Nations Cup events with Team Australia.
Emma Ochoa, Australia [18]
A strong all-rounder and winner of AusCycling’s domestic U19s road racing competition in 2024. Emma also secured a podium position at the 2023 Dirty Warrny gravel race.
Anabelle Thomas, Canada [19]
Having previously ridden for Canada at four Nations Cup races, Anabelle is a strong climber with a Junior national road title already under her belt.
Tjaša Susnik, Slovenia [22]
A talented climber who has already competed at high-profile races such as the Tour of the Ardeche, Tour de l’Avenir and Tour of Guangxi as part of the BTC City Ljubljana Scott squad. Tjaša’s experience is a definite advantage.
Alpecin-Deceuninck Development Team Finalists
Noah Ramsay, Canada [21]
Transitioning to cycling from hockey when he was 16, Noah’s career to date has predominantly been in Cross Country MTB. He is a skilled bike handler having raced for the U23 Canadian XCO World Championship team in 2021.
Friedrich Klein, Germany [18]
Having first taken up mountain biking with his friends in 2020, Friedrich has risen through the ranks quickly. He earned a spot on the Junior XC MTB World Series in 2023 and took part in his first road race in 2024.
Elliot Bain, Great Britain [21]
Having only started cycling in 2021, and competing for the first time last year, the ex-footballer is a strong all-rounder and has a bright future ahead of him.
Mattia Gaffuri, Italy [25]
Returning to the Zwift Academy finals for the second year running, the climber finished second in the 2023 European Climber’s Championships and also competed in the 2021 Giro Next Gen.
Hot Takes
1. Bringing in only younger finalists is refreshingly honest
At the end of the day, Zwift Academy is about (i) the pro road teams - not anybody else - selecting a single rider that (ii) is the best fit for their team. It is not about finding the best Zwifter and turning him or her into a pro road cyclist.
An unavoidable component of this is age: teams want younger riders that they can develop and who can help the team for years to come. This has become even more true (and explicit) since the Alpecin contract shifted from their WorldTour team to their development team in 2022. To illustrate this point, here are the approximate ages of all the previous Zwift Academy winners.2
Setting aside the first two editions on the women’s side, the average age of winners has been exactly 21. The focus on youth has been painfully obvious at times (Chiara Doni’s 2022 performance comes to mind), so it’s refreshing to see the finalists they’ve brought in this year reflect reality: the pro teams want younger riders that they can develop into WorldTour riders. We don’t have to pretend otherwise anymore.
2. Zwifting Doesn’t Actually Matter
Nope, nope, not even a little bit. It’s been trending this way the past few years, but this year only a single rider - Mattia Gaffuri, a Zwift Grand Prix stage winner - has any pro Zwift racing experience (we have him ranked 91st all time). Looking at the palmares of the finalists, none besides Gaffuri have any in the virtual space.3
And… that’s fine? It seems pretty clear that the pro teams are using *much* more than a few sessions on Zwift to scout and choose finalists. As they should. Gone are the days of Jay Vine getting “discovered” on Zwift and having the academy propel him to grand tour stage victories. More so with every passing year, Zwift Academy has become just another way for pro teams to scout and sign development riders, wrapped up as a reality show sponsored by Zwift. I really don’t have an issue with this - it’s wildly entertaining! - but actually racing (and succeeding) in the virtual space is completely disconnected from Zwift Academy.
3. The Men’s Competition is Over
In the first episode, the men’s session culminated with an all-out four minute effort. Here’s a screenshot of the results from the YouTube video.
GCN dressed up these results a bit to keep the suspense, but the gap between Noah and Mattia and the field was… quite large. So by the end of the first episode, we were already down to two riders.
The second episode was all about technical skills, with the riders winding their way through a freaking Go Kart track as fast as they could. I wish I didn’t have to say it this way, but Noah looked like a mountain biker on the course. Mattia looked like… well… a Zwifter. Here are the results:
Mattia was 10.97% slower than Noah. That’s a huge difference. And factor in that Noah beat both Gianni Vermeersch and some dude named van der Poel, and it’s going to take a miracle for anyone to take this from Noah.4
4. About that Go Kart Track…
… That was awesome. Need more bike racing like that. Reminds me of the Garage Racing National Championships.
5. Poor Emma
In the first episode, each of the female finalists was put up against a pro CANYON//SRAM zondacrypto rider for a on-on-one road sprint. Emma drew the short straw, and her competition was Zoe Bäckstedt. Which just wasn’t fair. Emma’s sprint peaked at 14 w/kg - respectable! - but she still got absolutely dusted.
6. Speaking of the Women, it’s Down to Two But Annabelle is the Favorite
In the first episode, Annabelle comfortably won the sprint, one-minute flat, and one-minute climb. Emily was second in the sprint and one minute climb, and third to Emma on the one minute flat.5 Emily did outperform Annabelle in the eight-minute climb though, with the latter tying Tjaša for second.
In the second episode, Emily was able to beat out Annabelle on the Go Kart track, though the coaches still named Annabelle rider of the day due to her technical skills and Emily’s difficulty holding wheels during the group efforts.
All in all, Annabelle and Emily have performed better than the other two riders so far. It’s really down to them. At the start of the first episode, the CANYON//SRAM zondacrypto coaches said they were looking for a “rider who is versatile,” and both these women fit the bill. But I think that Annabelle, on balance, has had better results and looks most comfortable on the bike. So I’ll take her to win, though the competition is much closer than with the men.
7. Oh, Canada
If it’s Noah and Annabelle, it’ll be two Canadians winning Zwift Academy.
🇨🇦 🇨🇦 🇨🇦
8. Final Thoughts: More Zwift/IRL Crossover Content Please
There is a voracious appetite for content that blends Zwift and the real world (and it doesn’t hurt when it’s packaged up as reality TV).
Everyone involved in the academy - Canyon, GCN, Zwift, Alpecin-Deceuninck, and CANYON//SRAM zondacrypto - has got to be massively happy with the product at this point. The first episode has already generated well over 250,000 views. That’s great for GCN, and it’s great marketing for Zwift. The pro team sponsors and Canyon benefit from the exposure as well. And the pro teams get to make their sponsors happy and leave the academy having signed a low-risk, high-potential development team rider. It’s a win-win-win-win-win.
The question for me though is whether we can see this Zwift/road blend go even further. Maybe Zwift puts on a pro stage race in the future with half the stages on Zwift and the rest on the road? That would be sweet. I realize there’s some pretty big practical impediments here - putting on an IRL race is infinitely more challenging, both for cost and logistics reasons (including getting riders from all over the world to one place). But maybe Zwift could sponsor and piggyback off an existing IRL series like GFNY.
I dunno. I get that it’s a real pie-in-the-sky idea. But the best part about writing a newsletter is I get to throw out these kind of ideas and leave it to others to do the actual work of implementing them 😁
Ages calculated by looking at birthdays listed in each riders PCS profile and determining their age at the end of the year in which they won Zwift Academy. I say “approximation” because I didn’t go back and cross check each athlete’s exact age at the moment they won the academy.
Of course, youth plays into this as well, since younger riders would’ve had less time to race on Zwift.
Sure, sure, insert caveats here about better conditions on the track when the finalists went vs. the pros, Noah clearly being willing to take more risks for a pro contract than MVDP for what is effectively a training drill, etc. Still, he beat both pros. That’s awesome!
Measured by raw watts in the sprint, and average speed in the one minute efforts.
Zwifting Doesn’t Actually Matter
Nope, nope, not even a little bit
Just watched both episodes while Zwifting. I liked your takes—it really is a reality show. I wish they gave more opportunities to older riders who were seriously trying to go pro, like Gaffuri (and Luca Vergalito and Jay Vine). But that’s just how it is, and I guess the sport isn’t going to change