UCI to standardise smart trainers used in esports competitions starting at the 2024 Cycling Esports World Championships

In a push toward a more controlled and level playing field, the UCI is looking to test and standardise smart trainers used in the 2024 UCI Cycling Esports World Championships this fall.  

Now in its fourth year, the virtual cycling championships are set to break ground on many fronts. It’s the first time the event will be held on a platform other than Zwift, and the championships will feature its first-ever in-person, live finale. The UCI inked a three-year contract with the UAE-based tech company, MyWhoosh, giving it the rights to host the cycling esports world championships for the coming three years and host a live event in Abu Dhabi, UAE, on October 26th.

At this event, all competitors will ride an Elite Justo 2 smart trainer that will, for the first time, be tested to meet the UCI standard of 1% power accuracy.  

In July, representatives from MyWhoosh and the UCI met at the Elite Headquarters in Italy to test and standardise the 30 trainers that will be used in the final.

"Extensive testing has ensured that the trainers perform within a 1% margin of equivalence and accuracy, providing confidence in the reliability of comparative performance data. We believe this approach best enables fair competition decided purely by athletic merit. By implementing this initiative, we can ensure equality and fairness, something esports has struggled with until now," MyWhoosh asserts.

The first three UCI Cycling Esports World Championships, hosted virtually on the Zwift platform, saw competitors equipped with hardware sent to them by Garmin-Tacx in 2020 and Wahoo in 2022 and 2023. 

The UCI tells Cycling Weekly that previous editions of the UCI Cycling Esports World Championships also involved robust testing and calibration by the smart trainer manufacturers, but the governing body wanted to further develop the testing protocol and parameters for the first-ever live final. 

“It is essential that our discipline applies the sporting tenets of fairness and integrity, also to hardware," said the UCI.

The 2024 race is poised to set a significant precedent as the host platform, governing body, and hardware manufacturer collaborate to elevate cycling esports to new heights.

"Our goal here is to further develop esports into a standalone cycling discipline that is fair and equitable for all racers. A key aspect of achieving this is to ensure consistent quality across equipment. We are working with Elite to establish the high standards required to achieve this. Athletes will have access to a trainer that has undergone rigorous and uniform testing, giving them confidence that the 2024 UCI Cycling Esports World Championships will be a 100% legitimate competition," says MyWhoosh.

All athletes who qualify for the live final will be sent a standardised Elite Justo 2 trainer at least four weeks before the event, which will be theirs to keep.

"We aim to provide an experience in which the most important factor is the athletes' skills and abilities rather than minor variances between their equipment. By October 26th, participants will have an exceptionally fair playing field on which to showcase their talents thanks to identical trainers subjected to the same testing environment," adds MyWhoosh.

The standardisation process

The standardisation process of competition smart trainers is done in partnership with a Purdue University Engineering team.

Smart trainer homologation involves an independent certification process that assesses the accuracy and reliability of various hardware on the market. In this process, a motor applies a known power to the trainer, which relays data to sensitive torque and rotational measurement sensors.

This system evaluates a trainer's baseline and dynamic characteristics, analysing how it responds to the changing power demands of a race scenario across the full range of an athlete's performance. The testing protocol includes a fully automated 2 to 3-hour session that checks the power range, resistance accuracy, and the hardware's response to stress factors like temperature fluctuations.

The UCI has yet to officially roll out the homologation initiative for the upcoming event, but UCI representatives were present to oversee and certify the process using a modified version of the Purdue protocol.

Each trainer underwent an extensive 1,000 km break-in period to condition all components and thoroughly simulate real-world use. MyWhoosh collaborated with Elite to develop a customised evaluation that simulated the expected power outputs for male and female athletes competing at the World Championships, with power targets set for an average weight of 70-75 kg for men and 55-60 kg for women. 

"The process we developed for validating the trainers for the World Championships includes several tests, such as putting our trainers under different conditions, e.g., sprints, accelerations, etc., at various levels of speed and power with our testing benchmarks that we also use for regular production," explains Elite. 

They also equipped each trainer with a high-precision power meter to report and compare the results between the trainer and the nanometer accuracy levels.

Each trainer provided accurate readings that matched these standardized levels and demonstrated highly consistent measurements across different gender and weight classes. It was essential that the trainers offered equitable functionality for all athletes competing in the event.

All 30 trainers selected for the 2024 UCI Esports World Championships perform within 1% of power accuracy. It was all done under the watchful eye of the UCI.

A WorldTour check

"It is critical to ensure that the performance metrics seen by spectators accurately reflect the capabilities of elite athletes, allowing riders at home to make meaningful comparisons to their own power numbers," says MyWhoosh.

The platform's financial incentives and challenging race formats attract the top esports talent, and the pro-level performances turn the heads of many sceptical onlookers. The platform takes several steps to demonstrate a commitment to performance authenticity.

MyWhoosh implements thresholds for each athlete based on the pre-verification Power Passport Test and the data MyWhoosh’s team of coaches provides. When a rider who isn’t a World Tour pro exceeds those data points, the system is alerted.

In February 2024, MyWhoosh flew several high-profile elite racers to its headquarters for in-person performance testing. 

Based on the in-house testing, the MyWhoosh team confirmed that the data were accurate and that the athletes met or exceeded World Tour numbers according to their calculations.

"This initiative allows us to add a new layer of certainty to the UCI Cycling Esports World Championships. Athletes participating in the live finals, as well as viewers at home, can be assured that all athletes are competing on hardware consistent with each other," says the UCI.

MyWhoosh believes that hardware certification will demonstrate to spectators how talented these athletes are as the performance bar rises.

"It will prove that the power numbers they are achieving are authentic performances. Showcasing real-time power data in this way allows us to further progress the sport. Now, anyone can reference the world-record power outputs achieved by the best male and female cyclists. Spectators will know what power levels they must attain to match those benchmarks. Displaying the real-time data gives accurate context to these amazing performances." 

By sharing data from esports events, MyWhoosh aims to achieve two primary benefits. First, it educates spectators about their own cycling potential by revealing what professionals are truly capable of. Second, it reinforces the sport's fairness and equitable nature by demonstrating that the equipment and racing conditions yield authentic and comparable results. Overall, this adds an extra layer of transparency to cycling esports.

Over time, MyWhoosh will require certified and standardized smart trainers for all their premium events to ensure authenticity and promote the evolution of the sport.

"It is truly necessary for fair competition. Standardization will expedite cycling esports becoming an Olympic sport and a standalone discipline, separate from traditional cycling. Certainly, certification and standardization will be crucial moving forward, both for MyWhoosh and esports in general," MyWhoosh insists.