LINE-UPS NAMED FOR STAGE THREE AS TITLE BATTLE HEATS UP

Michael Gogl’s win yesterday helped propel NTT Pro Cycling to the top of the Zwift Tour for All men’s standings while Team Tibco-Silicon Valley Bank head the women’s standings after two stages.

The Tour for All professional racing series will open a month-long charity fundraising initiative that will see Zwift donate a total of $125,000 to Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and its COVID-19 crisis fund. An additional $125,000 can be unlocked once 250,000 people complete a stage of the Tour for All. The professional racing series is designed to showcase the mass-participation stages and encourage Zwifters to take part  by riding some of the same courses that the pros have raced.

For more information on Zwift’s Tour for All head to Ride - zwift.com/tfaride

WHAT THEY SAID

Men's Stage 2 winner Michael Gogl of NTT Pro Cycling:

How would you sum up the race?

It was a really tough start. From the beginning it was pure gas. It was my first Zwift race, I did a stage in the Tour de Suisse the other day, but it was my first Zwift race. I was impressed how hard it was for the first 10 minutes, then we were really good with Michael Valgren also in the first group. It was great tactics from us. Michael was pushing it out at the front and I could save myself for the final sprint. I left everything out on the road there.

NTT seem to have perfected the tactics?

Yes, well we are an online company at NTT so we really know how to use computers and software! No, I don’t know – we just trained well. We have good support from the team throughout the whole race so we can play out our tactics really well and it worked.

Women's Stage 2 winner Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio of CCC LIV:

You won by quite some distance but I’m guessing it wasn’t an easy win?

No, I had to work for it. I was pretty active during the entire race, taking a lot of points but it was an amazing team performance. Marianne [Vos] did an incredible job of supporting me, and also Riejanne Markus too for a lot of the ride. It was super exciting. I loved it.

It was a great individual performance by Marianne Vos yesterday but you had some work to do today, what was the pre-race briefing?

I have to admit, I’m lucky to have a bit of experience having discussed the Zwift tactics already. I have spent seven weeks on Zwift during the lockdown in Spain so I was pretty going in to today. I knew it was going to be a punchy day, and punchy climbing is a major strength of mine so I wanted to make the race as hard as possible to get off with my team-mates so that we could do some damage with the final climb. I must say I was lucky enough to have a ‘feather’ to help me out.

The first thing you did when lockdown was lifted was climb up the famous rocacorba in Girona?

I must say I look at the foot of rocacorba all the time. Rocacorba is something that is close to my heart. I like to call it my climb as I am the pro who has done it the most. That was my motivation through the lockdown. All the training on Zwift, I knew I had worked hard. I thought let’s put it to the test see if this Zwift training really works and I smashed 3.5 minutes off my previous best time so it was a good effort.

WHAT’S NEXT

Stage 3 - Medio Fondo, Watopia. Elevation Gain: 981m (3220ft). Total distance: 72.9km (45.1 miles)

The first mountain stage. We begin by taking Ocean Boulevard around to the reverse Hilly KOM, which is the first half of the Figure 8 route. Then it’s over to the Volcano and up to the top before descending down and heading to the Italian Villas then the Mayan Jungle for a reverse loop of the circuit. After climbing out of the jungle, we descend back to sea level, hit The Esses and spin a quick around the Volcano Circuit. Then it’s through downtown Watopia and out Ocean Boulevard once more to the forward Epic KOM. Our route finishes at the Epic KOM banner.

ZWIFT TOUR FOR ALL STAGE 3 TEAM LINE-UPS (subject to change):

Men’s
Alpecin-Fenix: Antoine Benoist (France), Floris de Tier (Belgium), Louis Vervaeke (Belgium), Jimmy Janssens (Belgium), Philipp Walsleben (Germany)
Team Bahrain McLaren: Hermann Pernsteiner (Austria), Pello Bilbao Lopez de Armentia (Spain), Santiago Buitrago Sanchez (Colombia)
CCC Pro Team: Pavel Kochetkov (Russia), Attila Valter (Hungary), Georg Zimmermann (Germany), Will Barta (USA), Jonas Koch (Germany)
Cofidis Solutions Credits: Jesus Herrada (Spain), Eddy Fine (France), Nathan Haas (Australia), Jesper Hansen (Denmark), Mathias Le Turnier (France)
EF Pro Cycling: Hugh Carthy (Britain), Lawson Craddock (USA),  Ruben Guerreiro (Portugal), Tanel Kangert (Estonia), Julius Van Den Berg (Netherlands)
Groupama-FDJ: Rudy Molard (France), Valentin Madouas (France), Anthony Roux (France), Ignatas Konovalovas (Lithuania)
Israel Start-Up Nation: James Piccoli (Canada), Mads Würtz Schmidt (Denmark), Edo Goldstein (Israel), Omer Goldstein (Israel), Omer Lahav (Israel)
Mitchelton-Scott: Adam Yates (Britain), Simon Yates (Britain), Jack Haig (Australia), Lucas Hamilton (Australia), Chris Juul-Jensen (Denmark)
NTT Pro Cycling: Stefan de Bod (South Africa), Domenico Pozzovivo (Italy), Nicholas Dlamini (South Africa), Gino Mader (Switzerland), Victor Campenaerts (Belgium)
Rally Cycling: Kyle Murphy (USA), Stephen Bassett (USA), Matteo Dal-Cin (Canada)

Women’s
Boels-Dolmans Pro Cycling: Katie Hall (USA), Jip Van Den Bos (Netherlands), Lonneke Uneken (Netherlands), Chantal Blaak (Netherlands), Christine Majerus (Luxembourg)
Canyon-SRAM: Alena Amialiusik (Belarus), Elena Cecchini (Italy), Ella Harris (New Zealand), Omer Shapira (Israel), Kasia Niewiadoma (Poland)
CCC Liv: Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio (South Africa), Pauliena Rooijakkers (Netherlands), Jeanne Korevaar (Netherlands), Riejanne Markus (Netherlands), Sabrina Stultiens (Netherlands)
Drops Cycling Team: Anna Christian (Britain), Finja Smekal (Germany), Emily Meakin (Britain), Joss Lowden (Britain)
FDJ Nouvelle-Aquitaine Futuroscope: Brodie Chapman (Australia), Emilia Fahlin (Sweden), Shara Marche Gillow (Australia), Evita Muzic (France)
Rally Cycling: Krista Doebel-Hickok (USA), Leigh-Ann Ganzar (USA), Megan Jastrab (USA), Sara Poidevin (Canada), Emma White (USA)
TWENTY20 Professional Cycling: Shayna Powless (USA), Sofia Arreola (Mexico), Jennifer Valente (USA), Jennifer Luebke (USA), Jasmin Duehring (Canada)
Tibco-Silicon Valley Bank: Lauren Stephens (USA), Nina Kessler (Netherlands), Leah Dixon (Britain), Sarah Gigante (Australia), Jenelle Crooks (Australia)
Valcar-Travel & Service: Ilaria Sanguineti (Italy), Barbara Malcotti (Italy), Silvia Magri (Italy), Marta Cavalli (Italy), Silvia Persico (Italy)

BROADCAST DETAILS
3pm CEST (2pm BST) live on Eurosport 1 and live via the GCN app

THE STANDINGS (after two stages)

Men’s
1    NTT Pro Cycling Team – 137
2    Alpecin-Fenix – 132
3    EF Education First Pro Cycling – 129
4    Israel Start-Up Nation – 106
5    Mitchelton-Scott - 89

Women’s
1    Team TIBCO Silicon Valley Bank – 161
2    CCC-LIVE - 133
3    Canyon SRAM – 118
4    Team TWENTY20 - 86
5    Boels-Dolmans Pro Cycling - 83