The third round of the Zwift World Series 2024/25 will feature a showdown of cycling esports' top elite talent as they battle for a spot in the Zwift Games.
Zwift World Series 24/25 reaches the midpoint of the five race season with Race 3, featuring a scratch race format on the newly-designed Yorkshire Double Loop route.
Following the Halloween Open Qualifier race, 14 men and 20 women round out the field of fifty for Zwift World Series Race 3 on November 14th.
The top three Women’s Finishers in the Race 2 Open Qualifier were Merle Brunnée (Beastmode pb ROSE), Emma Belforth (eSRT), and Leonie Harper (Aeonian). The top three Men’s Finishers were Ruben Dhondt (Hexagone), Niki Hug (NeXT Esports P/B Enshored), and Nicholas Hamon (Hexagone). The complete results are here.
Here’s what we know about the format, route, prize money, and how to watch the thrilling high-powered racing.
Three racers from the top eight Men’s and Women’s teams from last season’s Zwift Grand Prix get a Series Pass and an automatic slot in each race.
Riders finishing in the top ten or winning either of the Primes during the first four races can also earn a pass, making it increasingly challenging to earn Open Qualification spots each race in the reduced fifty-racer fields.
In the Men’s overall individual classification, Ollie Jones (THE COALITION) leads by tiebreaker over Jo Pirotte (Abus-Synergy), each with 140 points, followed by teammate Jasper Paridaens (Abus-Synergy) in third with 130 points.
Gabi Guerra (Wahoo Esports) and Kathrin Fuhrer (Aeonian) sit atop the Women’s GC leaderboard with 149 (Guerra leads by virtue of the tiebreaker), and Kristen Kulchinsky (Virginia’s Blue Ridge Twenty28) steps onto the podium closely behind with 144 points.
The revamped Zwift World Series format gives the riders a lot to race for this season. In addition to cash prizes for individual, overall, primes, and team classification, the riders are fighting for a spot in the season-ending Zwift Games 2025.
There’s also a Zwift World Series Team Leaders helmet for the front runners in the team classification, which the men’s NeXT Esports P/B Enshored and Women’s Aeonian riders will sport in Race 3.
The Top 50 riders in the Individual Classification in the Zwift World Series will earn an invitation to race in the Zwift Games 2025. For complete details, read the article linked below.
Race 3 of the Zwift World Series takes riders to the designed-for-ZWS Yorkshire Double Loops course, featuring 29.6km of never flat terrain totalling 548m of elevation. The Scratch Race will have two Prime locations—the Yorkshire Sprint Reverse (.4km, 2.4%) at approximately 13km and The Yorkshire KOM (1.2km, 5.5%) at around 24km.
$7,400 is up for grabs to the first ten racers over the line, and $800 per Prime paid out three deep. The team with the best three finishers puts a grand into the team’s coffer.
You can catch the action by tuning into the Zwift YouTube Channel, and you can enhance your viewing experience with real-time data, racer cams, and more at ZwiftWorldSeries.com.
The Men’s race starts at 1715 UTC, followed by the Women’s at 1850 UTC. Enjoy the show!
Semi-retired after more than 20 years as the owner and director of a private Orthopedic Physical Therapy practice, Chris now enjoys the freedom to dedicate himself to his passions—virtual cycling and writing.
Driven to give back to the sport that has enriched his life with countless experiences and relationships, he founded a non-profit organization, TheDIRTDadFund. In the summer of 2022, he rode 3,900 miles from San Francisco to his “Gain Cave” on Long Island, New York, raising support for his charity.
His passion for cycling shines through in his writing, which has been featured in prominent publications like Cycling Weekly, Cycling News, road.cc, Zwift Insider, Endurance.biz, and Bicycling. In 2024, he was on-site in Abu Dhabi, covering the first live, in-person UCI Cycling Esports World Championship.
His contributions to cycling esports have not gone unnoticed, with his work cited in multiple research papers exploring this evolving discipline. He sits alongside esteemed esports scientists as a member of the Virtual Sports Research Network and contributes to groundbreaking research exploring the new frontier of virtual physical sport. Chris co-hosts The Virtual Velo Podcast, too.
