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The start of the second community qualifier race which included myself, Duffy Jr., and our teammate Scott Catanzaro, was like nothing else I’d ever experienced on Zwift. Uberti – opening 9km kilometers of Movistar Team Challenge community qualifier #1 :

Umberti’s power in the opening 9km of the Movistar Team Challenge community qualifier #1. I got into the pen relatively late, so was a few hundred places down to start, but was able to make most of the way to the front by getting a good sprint going before the start,” Uberti said after the race. “With some 2,000 starters, it was a way harder start than your average Zwift race. Uberti was first up for NeXT eSport, and he knew he was in for a treat. Chris Uberti was in a completely different camp, having skipped Tuesday’s ZRL race, he was fresh coming into Wednesday, and decided to jump into the race as if it were any other on Zwift. Brian Duffy, Jr., an all-around beast and the #2-ranked rider on ZwiftPower, was racing on tired legs. My NeXT eSport teammates, on the other hand, were not feeling quite as confident. Heading into Wednesday, I was feeling good. In this case, we had a ZRL race on Tuesday evening, which blew out the cobwebs just in time for Wednesday’s Movistar Team Challenge. Every rider is different, but for me, the best ‘openers’ seem to be a hard effort or short race the day before my goal event. With only a few days to prepare, I decided to treat the Movistar Team Challenge community qualifier race as if it were any other race on Zwift. EST, I had a tough decision to make: do I compete in both races? Risk burning my matches in the first race, and sacrificing my chances at the second? Or is it a numbers game – the economist in me says that my chances of making it into the top 5 are nearly doubled if I try twice.Īnd then a work meeting came up at 1:30 p.m., so I had no other choice than to put all my eggs in one evening’s basket. It mixed in two challenging and differentiated climbs, a few rolling sections that lent themselves to breakaways, and a tricky sprint finish where timing is critical.” My NeXT eSport teammate, Brian Duffy, Jr., summarized it best by saying it was a unique course that “required diverse skillsets. The races would take place over two laps of the Ocean Lava Cliffside Loop, an interesting course that would make for about 50 minutes of racing in total. As you may remember from my past articles, I currently ride for NeXT eSport on Zwift, which competes in one of the top community leagues in the WTRL Zwift Racing League – Americas E Division 1 (i.e., not the top-tier Premier League).īut as I scrolled, I saw the words “Community Qualifier Races” – two open races on Zwift from which the top 5 finishers would be invited to the first round of the Movistar Team Challenge.

While it initially sounded like a cool and ground-breaking event, I read in the first paragraph of the press release that the invitees would include riders currently racing in Zwift Racing League’s (ZRL) Premier League Division. When I first heard about the Movistar Team Challenge, I was a bit disappointed.

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Held exclusively on Zwift, a series of races will determine which riders make it to the final round of testing presented by Global Cycling Network (GCN), which will also include interviews, broadcasts, and other challenges “designed to draw out their personalities.” But never before have we seen such a big commitment from a WorldTour team, to fully support a men’s and women’s esport racing team with Movistar team bikes, team kit, access to Movistar coaches, physiologists, and training camps, and top-of-the-line indoor racing equipment.Īlong with some teammates, I went for it, and made it to the next round of competition.īranded the Movistar Team Challenge, the talent ID competition run by Movistar Team will ultimately narrow down a field of thousands of applicants to just five men and five women to join the new Movistar E-Team. We’ve seen WorldTour riders competing in the ‘Virtual Tour de France,’ we’ve seen world champions like Mathieu van der Poel racing on Zwift, and we’ve seen the first-ever UCI cycling eSports World Championships take place just a few weeks ago. Two weeks ago, Team Movistar announced that they would be creating the first-ever esport racing team by a WorldTour-licensed organization. Don't miss a moment from Paris-Roubaix and Unbound Gravel, to the Giro d’Italia, Tour de France, Vuelta a España, and everything in between when you

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