Published October 29, 2021 10:07AM
10 Zwift Academy Road contestants head to Mallorca to compete for a pro contract
Contracts with Alpecin-Fenix and Canyon-SRAM on the line for 2022.
When you work from home and you work for Zwift. Photo: Drake Deuel
After hours of riding in Zwift, across hundreds of kilometers of virtual roads, and up thousands of meters of virtual climbing, 10 finalists have stood out from the rest of the thousands of contestants in the Zwift Academy Road competition for a pro contract.
Now the five men and five women invited to the finals will travel to Mallorca, Spain for a final series of evaluations. The winning female will get a contract with Canyon-SRAM and the winning male will be signed with Alpecin-Fenix.
More than 150,000 riders participated in the Zwift Academy Road, from the initial Baseline route to the final Finishline route.
The five female finalists are Caitlin Conyers (Bermuda), Imogen Alton (Australia), Maud Oudeman (The Netherlands), Rachael Wales (Australia), and Willemijn Prins (The Netherlands). Joining them will be the top five male finalists: Alex Bogna (Australia), Byron Munton (South Africa), Cooper Sayers (Australia), Mads Rahbek, Denmark), and Samuel Hill (Australia).
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Both the men’s and women’s final camps will be held at the same time and location — a first for Zwift Academy — and the finalists will also complete some tasks together, while other events will be performed with their prospective teams. Representatives from the two professional cycling teams will be on hand in Spain, as well as coaches from Dig Deep Coaching, to analyze the Zwift Academy Road finalists’ abilities on the roads of Mallorca. Finalists will also be evaluated in off-the-bike challenges, and also how they interact with others in a team setting.
From the 2020 Zwift Academy Road finals, Jay Vine was offered a contract with Alpecin-Fenix. Vine survived crashes and finished third on stage 14 of the 2021 Vuelta a España. Nev Bradbury earned a contract with Canyon-SRAM, and proved her on-road abilities at the 2021 Australian national championships, where she sprinted to a bronze medal in the U23 criterium, and finished seventh in the elite women’s race. She also earned a silver medal in the U23 road race and was sixth in the elite women’s category.
The final round of the 2021 Zwift Academy Road will be broadcast on GCN, and the winners will be announced on December 17.
Additional information about Zwift Academy Road is available from the Zwift website.