Esports World Championships moved to October with 40-rider finals in Abu Dhabi

The UCI have announced that the UCI Esports World Championships will be moved from February to October in 2024, with 40 athletes travelling to Abu Dhabi to contest the men’s and women’s finals in person. 

Zwift worked closely with the UCI to create and organise the first Esports World Championships in 2020 but a new tender process saw MyWhoosh emerge as the organiser between 2024-2026. MyWhoosh was created in Abu Dhabi in 2019 and is currently free to use via the MyWhoosh app.

MyWhoosh sponsors the UAE Team Emirates WorldTour team and Abu Dhabi will host a series of UCI World Championships in the years to come.

Abu Dhabi will host the 2024 UCI Urban Cycling World Championships, the 2028 UCI Road World Championships, the 2028 UCI Gran Fondo World Championships and the 2029 UCI Track World Championships.

Zwift remains as a sponsor of the Tour de France Femmes and also hosts and organises a series of major racing competitions. Zwift has also launched the 2023 Academy programme that offers an opportunity to secure a contract with the women’s Canyon/Sram Generation and the men’s Alpecin-Deceuninck Development teams.

The 2024 Esports World Championships will include virtual qualifying rounds, with details of the qualification pathways and race format revealed in early 2024.

No explanation was given for the change in date. The February date favoured athletes who had trained and raced indoors during the European winter but failed to attract many of the best professional riders.

Loes Adegeest of the Netherlands and Denmark's Bjørn Andreasson won the 2023 Esports titles.

Adegeest outpaced Zoe Langham (Great Britain), while Jacqueline Godbe (USA) took bronze.

Andreasson used a different tactic, jumping away from the 10-man final group right at the very start and then holding a consistent rhythm and avoiding the stop-start nature of the elimination race sprints. Former world champion Jason Osbourne and Marc Mäding took silver and bronze.