The Union
Cycliste Internationale (UCI) is pleased to confirm the dates of the first UCI
Cycling Esports World Championships, which will take place on 8 and 9 December
2020.
These 2020 UCI
Cycling Esports World Championships will take place on Zwift, the global
online training and racing platform for athletes. The Worlds follow last year’s
announcement, during the UCI Road World Championships in Yorkshire (Great
Britain), of the partnership between the UCI and Zwift to develop and govern
the new cycling discipline of cycling esports.
The 2020 UCI
Cycling Esports World Championships will see athletes race entirely virtually,
from their home or training centre. The two categories – Men Elite and Women
Elite – will compete over the same route and distance, with the two 2020 UCI
World Champions to be awarded the prestigious rainbow jersey that they will
wear for sanctioned cycling esports events in 2021.
The UCI will allocate National Federations with participation quotas
that will be announced at a later stage, based on three criteria: the UCI Road
Rankings (as of June 2020), the number of riders registered in a Registered
Testing Pool, and the number of eligible riders on the Zwift platform.
Automatic invitations will be sent by the UCI to the National Federations
represented by the highest population of riders on the Zwift platform within
each gender and meet the above criteria. This concerns 20 National Federations
(Italy, Belgium, France, Netherlands, Australia, Spain, USA, Great Britain,
Germany, Switzerland, Canada, Denmark, Poland, Austria, Colombia, New Zealand,
South Africa, Norway, Ireland, Japan) for the men’s event and 13 National
Federations (Netherlands, Italy, Australia, France, USA, Germany, Belgium,
Great Britain, Poland, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, Japan) for the women’s
event. Additional wildcard invitations may be awarded to individual riders by
the UCI. The aim is to ensure that all five continents are represented in both
the women’s and men’s races and that it is possible to achieve the same number
of total entries for women as men.
Further information on the route of the UCI World
Championships and the spots awarded to National Federations will be revealed at
a later date.
The
UCI
President David Lappartient declared: “It’s with great pleasure that we are able to confirm the dates and
plans for the first UCI Cycling Esports World Championships. The year has
certainly been a challenging one for all, but we are now back to enjoying
racing and have a new UCI World Championships to look forward to at the end of
2020. Virtual races were hugely popular during the period that competitions
ceased, and I truly believe in the potential of esports to help grow
participation in our sport. This is a historic moment.”
Zwift CEO and Co-Founder Eric Min added: “We’re delighted to finally be able to unveil the plans for the
first UCI Cycling Esports World Championships. 2020 has been a big year for
esports as it has helped fill the gap left by traditional sport. Moving forward
we look forward to establishing this as a new discipline of the sport – not one
to plug gaps, but one that’s truly complementary to other disciplines, whether
that be road, cyclo-cross or mountain bike. There’s a huge opportunity to grow
the sport with esports and I’m proud that together with the UCI, we are able to
lead the way.”