Cycling’s transfer merry-go-round continued to revolve into November as Australia’s Jay Vine secured a two-year contract with UAE Team Emirates after the annulment of the 26-year-old’s contract with Alpecin-Deceuninck.
“He can come to our team and be a very high-level rider on the climbs,” commented UAE Team Emirates’ general manager Mauro Gianetti. “We think he can go for GC in the future.”
Rewind just two years and the then Continental-level rider was celebrating success on the Zwift Academy programme. From riding in his front room to rubbing shoulders with Tadej Pogačar in two years, it has been a steep trajectory.
It is also the highest-profile exemplar of how indoor cycling – specifically the phenomenon that is Zwift – can kickstart a journey(wo)man cyclist’s career.
An outlier? The growing evidence suggests not, as virtual cycling has become an ever-important platform for a rider to make their virtual dreams become a reality.
Identifying potential
In terms of talent ID, there is a two-way channel: a rider seeking a contract and a team searching for a rider.
Jay Vine was racing for Australian Continental team Nero when he won the 2020 Zwift Academy and with it a one-year contract with Belgian ProTeam team Alpecin-Fenix (now Alpecin-Deceuninck), who extended his contract to 2023 after he placed second overall at the 2021 Tour of Turkey and impressed at that year’s Vuelta a España.
After winning the 2022 UCI eSports World Championships, Vine then finished runner-up again at the Tour of Turkey and also the Tour of Norway before making his true world-class breakthrough at the Vuelta, where he won two stages in three days and also looked set to win the mountain classification until a crash forced his withdrawal.
In preparation for the Academy, Vine’s build-up Zwift efforts were borderline insane. He’d complete four events in a row with just 10 minutes’ rest in between. His full-blown efforts measured two hours in that time. In short, he’d forged a mind and body that was ready for the next step.
“Many riders have come through the Zwift Academy and carved out a good professional career,” says Chris Snook, Zwift UK’s Director of External Communications. “Ella Harris won the Academy in 2018 and has since won a stage of the Women’s Herald Sun Tour.” The New Zealander has also just signed to Le Col-Wahoo from Canyon-SRAM.
“Then…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at CyclingNews RSS Feed…