Zwift is building a new course in partnership with UCI World. The new course will be a replica of the 2018 UCI Road World Championships taking place in Innsbruck, Austria from September 22nd to 30th but you’ll be able to ride it even sooner on Zwift.
Zwift’s Innsbruck course is expected to focus on the 24km (15mile) ‘Olympic Lap’, tackled 7 times during the Men’s road race and 3 times during Women’s road race, which includes an 8km (5 miles) climb and passes through the scenic old town of Innsbruck, ‘Capital of the Alps’.
“This course is something we’ve not seen at the UCI Road World Championships for many years and will translate into something incredible for our Zwift community.” adds Eric Min, Zwift Co-Founder and CEO. “It’s going to be fantastic to be riding alongside World Championship contenders conducting their course recons on Zwift. I can’t wait.”
This course is a bit different than the mostly flat 2015 Richmond course currently available in Zwift. There are no plans to discontinue Richmond course and replacing it with Innsbruck course. Instead, Zwift will be adding this as a new course to the game.
Zwift is planning to have the new course ready before the UCI World Championship and will serve as a training tool. This will be the first time Zwift employs course familiarization ahead of an actual race.
“This has the potential to be truly groundbreaking for the national teams.” says Austria’s Bernhard Eisel of Team Dimension Data. “The lead contenders will certainly be performing course reconnaissance in the coming months, as is the norm. However, what is 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. And it will be super motivating to prepare alongside Zwifters from all over the world.”
The new 2018 UCI Road World Championships Innsbruck-Tirol Course will continue to live on Zwift long after the championships have concluded in September this year.
In the coming weeks, Zwift will announce plans for ‘pop up’ activations at Innsbruck during the 2018 UCI Road World Championships. These will provide an opportunity for the Zwift community to meet in person and for the brand to engage face to face with the thousands of visitors expected to attend the live events in Innsbruck.
You can already ride a grade perfect replica of the course in the new Tacx Desktop software.