Women's Zwift KISS Super League esports racing kicks off in Koblenz
With the men's pro competition having been up and running since January 23, the women's KISS Super League – esports racing on virtual racing and training app Zwift – now begins on Tuesday, and promises to be just as exciting with seven women's pro teams and two Zwift teams doing battle in a virtual world.
Four riders each from Canyon-SRAM, Doltcini-Van Eyck, Bigla, Valcar-Cylance, TWENTY20 p/b Sho-Air, Hagens Berman Supermint and WNT-Rotor, plus a Zwift Academy Dream Team and a Zwift All Stars squad, will line up at Canyon bikes' headquarters in Koblenz, Germany, on Tuesday, February 19, at 11am PST (7pm GMT) for the first in a weekly series of eight races.
Four rounds of the men's competition have so far taken place, with British Continental team Madison Genesis having been the most successful squad so far, with three wins out of four through Ian Bibby and Jon Mould, with Mould having won the last two rounds.
The races are streamed live online, and with pro riders now racing each other, it shows that indoor, virtual racing likely has a bright future, with cycling's governing body, the UCI, also suggesting that they will one day stage an esports world championship, and British Cycling announcing a national championship, which is set to happen this year.
Competing for Canyon-SRAM at Tuesday's first women's KISS Super League round will be Alice Barnes, Tanja Erath, Rotem Gafinovitz and Ella Harris, with Erath having in fact earned her pro contract through the Zwift Academy virtual-racing competition in 2017, in which she beat more than 2,000 other women to win a place on the team.
"The races are an easy way of putting race efforts into your legs and comparing your performance to others without travelling around the globe to race," Erath said on the Canyon-SRAM website.
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com