Zwift Academy began as a talent identification program for underprivileged athletes. The idea, it seemed, was to provide exceptionally strong cyclists with the opportunity to turn professional. The Academy, thus, focused on cyclists who didn’t already have the means to turn professional.
Perhaps they were cyclists from a country where cycling is not a major sport, such as Australia, South Africa, or the USA. Riders who were exceptionally strong but didn’t have a clear pathway to the pros, were the ones that became the focus of Zwift Academy.
Europeans, for example, have 100x more resources than Australians, South Africans, and Americans when it comes to turning pro. There are fully-funded junior and U23 teams, countless amateur teams, and gobs of professional teams across Europe. Not to mention the hundreds of professional races and thousands of kermesses that could help you land a pro contract.
Regardless of how strong you are, the professional cycling dream feels like an impossibility for those who live in New York City, Victoria, or Johannesburg.
It seemed, from the outside looking in, that Zwift Academy was designed to give these riders an opportunity to join a professional cycling team in Europe. But over the years, Zwift Academy finalists have skewed the other way. And in 2023, it was almost an embarrassment.
I’m not saying Zwift Academy is wrong. In fact, I think it’s one of the best talent ID programs in the world, and it’s great to see so much of the processes being shared with the public. Most WorldTour teams and some second-tier professional teams hold some sort of talent ID program. Sometimes, they bring select riders into a lab to test their physiological capabilities. At other times, riders will be invited to one of the team’s training camps to ride and mingle with the squad.
Some teams have gone so far as calling and meeting with riders individually, almost like an extensive job interview. They’ll ask hundreds of questions, some basic and some extremely personal, to see if this rider could be a good fit for the team.
Zwift Academy showcases some of these processes, though most of them are hidden through quick edits. Casual viewers might miss these moments, but the unseen cuts on the edit room floor are likely what decides the Academy winners.
2023 Men’s Finalists
For those wondering, these were my power numbers in the 2023 Zwift Academy workouts:
30sec: 950w (14w/kg)
2min: 545w (8w/kg)
5min: 486w (7w/kg)
8min: 450w (6.5w/kg)
30min: 398w (5.9w/kg)
The 2023 Zwift Academy Finalists were the strongest riders that have ever come through the Academy. Mattia Gaffuri is a coach and cyclist who trains 30-40 hours a week. His palmares include a second-place finish at the 2023 European Hill Climb Championships (Championnats d’Europe des Grimpeurs), as well as riding the U23 Giro d’Italia in 2021, and the U23 Il Lombardia in 2020.
Gaffuri lives in Italy, but he spends most days training with all sorts of gadgets. I’ve seen him on Instagram and Strava in a heat training suit, or submerged in a hot bath searching for gains. His training rides are ridiculous, and he’ll routinely do 6w/kg for 25 minutes at the end of a 7-hour training ride.
I don’t know exactly what it takes to make it as a WorldTour professional, but I’m pretty sure that’s it.
Anton Schiffer, a 24-year-old German, is an absolute beast when you look at his power-to-weight ratio, but his results haven’t quite followed (yet). Schiffer is a current professional on the BIKE AID Continental team, where he’s been since mid-2023. He’s raced the Vuelta a Portugal, Tour of Turkey, and Tour of Antalya, the third of those coming in 2024.
He finished 7th on GC at the Tour of Antalya, showing that he is improving year-on-year. But when you look at his power numbers, it’s hard to believe he’s not already in the WorldTour. According to Schiffer’s Strava and the Zwift Academy tests, his threshold is somewhere around 410w (6.5-6.6w/kg). Whether that’s his 20-minute threshold or 60-minute threshold doesn’t really matter. Anyone who can do those numbers should be winning professional bike races.
The third men’s finalist and 2023 Zwift Academy winner was Louis Kitzki. Now, I’ve seen a lot of data and analyzed hundreds of thousands of power files, and Kitzki seems like something special.
Throughout the 2023 Zwift Academy Finals, Kitzki was five steps behind Gaffuri and Schiffer. He looked stiff on the bike, both on the flats and on descents. It was so bad it looked like he’d hardly ridden a bike outside before. Yet his threshold is >6w/kg at 19 years old.
The coaches clearly favored Kitzki throughout the Finals, taking unnecessary digs at Gaffuri and Schiffer while always saying, “Kitzki is still so young. He has time to grow.” It’s like the Finals were over before the first power test.
Kitzki’s age was the “it” factor.” He didn’t need to show anything in the skills and drills; he just needed to show that he could do the power, and that was it. Finals over, contract signed.
If Kitzki’s power numbers are as good as the team suggested – I went searching for his files, and I can’t find them anywhere – he has the potential to be a special rider.
The best riders in the world are not always child prodigies. In fact, some of them develop late, around 18-22 years old, before reaching the WorldTour. Jonas Vingegaard, for one, was 22 years old when he joined Team Jumbo-Visma. Primož Roglič was even older, making the jump from a Continental team to Team Jumbo-Visma at age 26.
Alpecin-Deceuninck clearly sees Louis Kitzki as a diamond in the rough. Only time will tell.