Popular training-simulator and cycle gaming environment Zwift will add the UCI Road World Championships Innsbruck-Tirol course to its platform this August. A month ahead of the racing in Austria it promises to give riders and fans the opportunity to practise before the Championships which take place from 22nd to 30th September.
'This has the potential to be groundbreaking for the national teams,' said Austria’s Bernhard Eisel of Dimension Data.
'The lead contenders will be performing course reconnaissance in the coming months. However, what’s new is the ability to repeatedly train on a key segment of the course and understand when the best moments to attack will come.
'For riders such as myself, who will serve as supporting riders, we need to understand when the critical moments of the race will come and ensure our leaders are in the best position possible.'
Yet while Eisel is set to compete on home soil, the World Championships will also see riders from across the globe descending on Innsbruck.
Enjoying massively varied levels of support from their respective national federations, the ability to preview the course will be of even greater use to riders who won’t get a chance to recce the route ahead of the event.
With the complete men’s race spanning 259 kilometres, and ascending 4,670 vertical metres, most of this comes courtesy of the tough final circuit.
Tackled seven times during the men’s road race and three times during women’s road race, the 32km ‘Olympic Lap’, features an 8km climb at 5.7% followed by a 2.8km climb of 11.5%, after which the riders descend before a final 2km dash to the line.
Including landmarks and topography lifted from this section of the course, more crucially the Zwift version will allow riders to replicate the gradients involved via a connected smart trainer.
A tie-in with the Organising Committee of the 2018 UCI Road World Championships, the virtual Zwift course will remain online in perpetuity following the real-world event.