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Two weeks ago, I sat behind Tadej Pogačar and Peter Sagan at the UCI eSports World Championships, watching the final sprint of the elite women’s race. After three races and seven sprints, the women’s world championship was coming down to the final pedal strokes between Mary Kate McCarthy and Gabriela Guerra. Whoever crossed the line first would become the world champion.
I was on the edge of my seat with my palms sweating as they entered the final few hundred meters. I looked around and saw Pogačar and Sagan, too, were on the edge of their seats. Hundreds of others in the audience were clapping and cheering as they witnessed the first-ever in-person UCI eSports World Championships. It blew my mind to think about what brought us all here.
In 2020, I started riding on the indoor trainer every day because there wasn’t the option to ride outside. It felt like the pandemic had shut the world down, and no one knew how long it would last. I was too competitive and cycling-addicted to become a couch potato, so I got on the trainer and started riding.
Fast forward to 2024, and I am now sitting alongside Pogačar and Sagan in Abu Dhabi, watching the top 20 women in the world battle it out on indoor trainers. I still had about two hours until my race began, so I was lucky enough to witness McCarthy win the final sprint and become the world champion.
I then rushed backstage and went off to the men’s dressing room, where we kitted up for the elite men’s world championship. I looked around the room and noticed that everyone was going through their pre-race routine. These are the things that you never see while racing at home — you only see these riders mid-race on a Zoom call. You never get to see what they’re up to 90 minutes before the start.
Some riders were laughing and joking, so much so that you wouldn’t have guessed they were racing a world championship in less than two hours. Other riders went through their activation sessions with warm-up tights and elastic bands; some were lying on the floor, and others were swinging their body in all sorts of directions. The last group of riders — I fall into this category — were quiet and focused. We had our headphones on and a mean mug that said, “Don’t talk to me.”
45 minutes before our race, we lined up backstage for a pro-wrestling-style entrance. The commentators called our names one by one, and we entered the stage to lights, music, and a giant photo of ourselves on the big screen. I almost tripped on my way out, and that would have been hilarious. But fortunately, I caught myself just before the cameras did, and I made my way to the trainer platform.
The top 20 riders in the world were lined up across this massive stage, ready to battle it out for the rainbow jersey. As we began the warm up, I realized that I hadn’t raced without headphones in months. It was a completely different experience to be there in person in Abu Dhabi. At home, we are so used to having our customized trainer setups. Every bottle, towel, monitor, and gel is exactly where it needs to be, and we can go through our pre-race protocols exactly the same way every time.
In Abu Dhabi, we sat on a stage in front of hundreds of people and thousands watching at home. We weren’t wearing any headphones, and we had a lot to think about in those last few moments before stage 1.
The countdown began for the first race of the Men’s eSports World Championship, and I knew exactly what to do. Specifically, Team USA knew exactly what to do. Hayden Pucker, Neal Fryett, and I had a plan to coast off the back in the first few seconds of the race. As the group rolled away, we would gather ourselves into a leadout train and sprint onto the back of the group just as the timed segment began. The plan worked to perfection, and Team USA finished 1-2-3 in the first of three stages.
My legs ran out of gas by the middle of stage 2, so I spent the next 45 minutes helping Team USA as much as I could. Hayden Pucker went on to finish fifth, behind former WorldTour pro and now two-time eSports World Champion Jason Osborne. Pucker pushed over 600w for five minutes and had some of the biggest names in the sport talking about him. He wasn’t the only one to have plenty of doubters coming into the world championships.
McCarthy and Guerra faced similar criticism ahead of the trip to Abu Dhabi. But they were able to prove themselves on the biggest stage in the sport. With an in-person weigh-in, verified equipment, drug testing, and side-by-side racing, every rider at the world championships had the opportunity to prove their legitimacy, something that can be hard to come by in virtual sports.
After the racing concluded, we all got off our bikes and shared high-fives and hugs across the stage. Some riders collapsed to the floor in exhaustion, but everyone had a smile on their face.
MyWhoosh couldn’t have pulled off a better in-person event. There was a lot of pressure on the platform to deliver at the first-ever live world championships. But there wasn’t a single dropout or major issue across both the women’s and men’s races. We also had time to explore Abu Dhabi, and many riders stayed after the championships to vacation in Dubai.
The last story that I need to mention about the 2024 UCI eSports World Championships was the Saturday morning sauna session. Due to timing and verification purposes, the weigh-in was held roughly 12 hours before the start of the women’s and men’s races. With the world championships being held on Saturday night in Abu Dhabi, that meant that we all weighed in at the rider hotel on Saturday morning.
At 7:30 in the morning, I sat alongside 10 of the best eSports cyclists in the world, dripping sweat and half-naked in a sauna in Abu Dhabi. I had never even met most of these guys before — they were a chat box on Discord, an avatar on MyWhoosh, or a video on Zoom — and now we were crammed in a sauna together before the world championships.
Some riders spent more time in the sauna, while others skipped it completely. Everyone had their own procedure, but we were all laughing and joking before the official weigh-in. As complicated as the weight issue is in eSports, it was nice to be alongside my teammates and competitors during this process.
Too many of us get stuck in our heads when it comes to weigh-ins and weight-cutting. Riders hyper-focus on 0.1 kg, even though it has no real consequence in the game. It’s easier to get stuck in your head at home because you can’t see what your competitors are doing. But when you’re in person, you can see that everyone is in the same boat. We are all in this together, and that’s the kind of camaraderie that you can’t quite match at home.
