29 August 2018
In the new rapidly growing world of Zwift virtual reality training and competition, Today’s Plan is proud to announce that one of our athletes, is the new Zwift Australia (virtual) Champion!
Nicholas White of Oliver’s Real Food Racing conquered the testing Volcano Climb route in Watopia on Sunday morning, to claim the crown of Australian Champion. 20 year old White is no stranger to success on the home trainer, in 2017 he made the top 3 in the Zwift Academy, which saw him travel to South Africa for the Dimension Data team training camp with a chance to join the continental team for 2018. However it wasn’t to be for White, who then continued on with Today’s Plan partner team Oliver’s Real Food Racing for this season.
The Zwift Australian Championships were held on a testing virtual course, which featured three ascents of the now famous Watopia Volcano. White won the race from a small bunch that split from the main field.
Here is the breakdown of how it played out:
- 141 starters
- 26 riders left after 1st climb
- 12 left after second climb
- last climb only 7 left in group
Course profile and route
Nick White – 1st place
First 5min
As it seems is the case with all virtual races on Zwift, the Australian Championship race started at a furious pace. Nick averaged 344 watts for these first 5 minutes, with his heart rate skyrocketing to 186 BPM just 35 seconds in!
The first climb
The race then settled down, with Nicks average power dropping to 310 watts average for the first 15 minutes of the event, as it seemed everyone was preparing themselves for the first ascent of the Volcano. At roughly the 15min mark of the race the climb begun. For 6 minutes and 15 seconds it was on! Nick covered attacks as his heart rate skyrocketed to 195 BPM. For a whole 2 minutes Nick held 420 watts! For the whole climb 379 watts average, and 180 bpm.
The final climb
As the finish of the race was not at the top, we saw a very similar performance from Nick in terms of power (420 watts) however the fatigue of racing hard took it’s toll as is demonstrated in his heart rate. Average of 190bpm with a new maximum for the ride so far of 197 bpm.
The sprint finish
As the commentators described, Nick produced the perfectly times sprint finish to take the win. As many Zwifters know, sprinting in virtual reality tends to favor the rider who can produce a long powerful sprint. As we can see from the last 2kms of the race, Nick had to produce a smaller effort of 648 watts for 15 seconds with just over a kilometer to go to cover a late attack. He then went all out for the sprint to the finish: 15 seconds at a whopping 981 watts, hitting a maximum of 1106 watts 11 seconds in! Naturally his heartrate spikes just after the finish line. 200 bpm.
