Cycling Ireland has announced details of the first-ever eRacing national championships, which will be held at an as-yet unspecified venue in Dublin on Saturday January 15th. The contest will follow on from a qualification event held online at 10am on December 18th, where riders from around the country will compete online in a bid to get through to the championships.
“Cycling Ireland virtual races and training activities have proven popular over the past 18 months with Cycling Ireland hosting the largest sporting event during the early stages of Covid-19 restrictions in the summer of 2019 when 1,900 people took part from their own homes,” said the governing body in a statement.
“At its peak, a single round of the Cycling Ireland Zwift Series achieved over 35,000 live stream views. In 2021, over 21,000 people have participated in a Cycling Ireland organised eRace or mid-week structured workout on the Zwift cycling platform.”
The qualification will be run off on the same Zwift cycling platform using the Watopia Figure 8 course. This will be 29.8 kilometres in length and will see the male and female fields starting separately, one minute apart.
The first ten from each of those two categories will then go on to the eRacing national championships, where they will all compete on the same Wahoo ecosystem at a Dublin location. This event will again use the Zwift platform, with the 34.5 kilometre New York Astoria Line 8 route to be employed.
Further details about the qualification event and the national championships itself can be found on CyclingIreland.ie.
