Assessing the Zwift Games 2025 Overall Championship favorites and contenders heading into the final Epic Championship stage.
By Chris of Pro E Cycling
After painstakingly poring over hours of YouTube footage and digging through archived race results, Chris brought the concept of elite cycling esports athlete rankings to life with Pro E Cycling. Now, he shares his perspective on which riders have the greatest chance of becoming the top Zwift cycling esports racers in 2025.
On Saturday, Kate McCarthy and Neal Fryett took home the Zwift Games Climb Championships. Both riders are now 2/2 in Zwift Games 2025, having each won the Sprint Championship on March 8 as well.
But how likely is it that McCarthy and Fryett will win the Overall Championship? The final stage – the Epic Championship – will take place this Saturday at 1700 UTC. Before that final stage kicks off, let’s take a look at where things stand heading in, and at which riders are still in the running for the overall title.
The Course
Before we get into the women’s and men’s favorites, a quick look at the course for the Epic Championship. Paraphrasing from our preview of Zwift Games:
The format here is simple. It’s a scratch race, and here’s the course:
ZG25 Queen. The route is 44.8 km/894m. There are two intermediate K/QOMs, where the first three riders across the line receive 10, 5, and 3 bonus points respectively. At the finish line, riders will be awarded points based on their position, starting at 70 and descending by one until last place (so second gets 69 points, third 68, etc.).
For fans familiar with Sunday Race Club, I described this course in our preview as “basically an easy SRC route.” It’s certainly longer and more attritional than standard Zwift races, but for those riders who race every Sunday on MyWhoosh this isn’t going to be anything outside their comfort zone.
Women
Standings
After the Sprint and Climb Championships, here are the *provisional* standings for the women heading into the final stage. The caveat here is that, as of the date of this article, the Climb Championship results have not yet been verified:
Kate McCarthy - The Favorite
Spoilers, but the women’s race is over. McCarthy holds a 15-point lead on Holdcroft and a 20-point lead on Guerra, the only two riders who, if you really squint, are still in striking distance for the Overall crown. But the thing is, you really have to squint.
I’ve written at length about how dominant McCarthy has been this year. From our Zwift Games preview:
McCarthy [is] my pick to win Zwift Games on the women’s side. Her season thus far has been insane – she’s won the UCI World Championship, four of the five Sunday Race Club monthly finals in which she’s participated, and the only Zwift World Series race she entered she won but had the result annulled due to a trainer malfunction. Another way of saying all this is that, if you count the World Series win, McCarthy has won six of the seven pro races [as defined by Pro E Cycling] she’s entered this year.
It turns out that “insane” was an understatement. McCarthy has now won eight of nine pro races this season after taking home the Sprint and Climb championships. We have quite literally never seen this level of dominance in virtual cycling before. In our ranking system, once the Climb results are verified, McCarthy will have scored 678 Pro E Cycling (PEC) points this season.
That is itself good enough for the second-best season of all time, 49.3 points behind Kathrin Fuhrer’s incredible season last year where she won two Zwift Games stages, the Overall Championship, and six SRC finals. McCarthy is poised to blow past that this weekend.
Basically, the only way McCarthy doesn’t win the Overall at this point is if she has a mechanical, gets sick, or some other sort of disaster strikes. Because Holdcroft is closest at 15 points back, let’s use her as the example to show how the math doesn’t really math for anyone with hopes of taking down McCarthy.
In the two climb stage stages this past weekend, the women’s field fractured badly over the top of some of the climbs. In Stage 3, six women remained over the top of the Volcano climb (McCarthy, Fuhrer, Holdcroft, Gardner, Bates, and Guerra). The split was seven in Stage 4 – McCarthy, Gardner, Bates, Holdcroft, and Guerra again, plus Ashleigh Moolman Pasio and Söderström. It’s reasonable to think that a similar split might happen in the Epic Championship.
If that happens, it’s really hard to see how Holdcroft could find 15 points on McCarthy. The intermediate QOMs are the only way it could happen: with only one point differentiating riders at the finish line, Holdcroft winning the stage, and McCarthy coming in 15th wouldn’t be enough absent intermediate points. The difference in points at the finish, by itself, just isn’t enough to make up this large of a gap.
So that leaves the two QOMs as the best place for Holdcroft to find 15 points. Which is all well and good until you realize that… well… McCarthy has won three of the four intermediate QOMs/sprints so far in Zwift Games.
In theory, is it possible for Holdcroft to get there? Of course – you can imagine a scenario where she takes a QOM, and McCarthy comes up empty, which would bring Holdcroft within 5 points. Then anything could happen – maybe Holdcroft takes the second QOM as well, or McCarthy bonks towards the finish, and Holdcroft beats her by more than five places.
But these scenarios seem pretty remote, and it’s hard to imagine McCarthy not also scoring a lot of points on the QOMs and being in the top five (at worst) at the finish line. If that happens, there really isn’t a path for Holdcroft to catch her – let alone anyone else with even more ground to make up.
The Contenders
All that said, there is at least a *possible* path for Holdcroft and Guerra to still win: basically, win the intermediate points and hope McCarthy gets blanked. But this is really only true for Holdcroft and Guerra. Fuhrer, at 270 points, sits 28 points down on McCarthy heading into the Epic.
For her to win, she’d need: (i) both intermediate QOMs with McCarthy getting nothing (netting 20 points); and (ii) to win while McCarthy finished ninth (or otherwise finishing eight places ahead of McCarthy, which would net her the other 8 where she’d win on the tiebreaker).
Needless to say… this isn’t really going to happen. The Overall is McCarthy’s to lose, and I can’t really envision a way that happens.
Men
And now the complete opposite – the men. I guess I’ll put a spoiler here as well: I have no idea how this is going to turn out. Here’s the *provisional* standings going into the Epic:
Needless to say, this is much closer than the women’s race. So let’s have some fun, make some picks, and hope they aren’t wildly wrong.
Neal Fryett - The Favorite
I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve drastically underrated Fryett. He got picked apart by Hayden Pucker in U.S. nationals, came a respectable but not eye-catching 14th at the UCI World Championship, and was… fine in the Zwift World Series (coming 6th, 23rd, and 9th in the three stages, respectively).
Indeed, in our Zwift Games preview, I called Fryett’s win over Teugels and Jones in last year’s Epic Championship “the biggest upset of the inaugural Zwift Games.”
Well, I’m an idiot.
Because here’s the thing: Fryett maybe isn’t the *best* sprinter. He’s certainly not the best climber. But is he able to hang on to the wheels of the best climbers for a five-minute effort?
Yes. And can he out-sprint whoever is left in that group at the end of that climb? Also yes. And it turns out this precise skill set has been invaluable in the courses Zwift has put together this year.
Take the Climb Showdown this weekend. Fryett was up against Vujasin, Ovett, Teugels, and Dhont going up Fox Hill. This is verifiable shmorgishborg of some of the best virtual riders (and climbers) ever – we have Vujasin, Ovett, and Teugels ranked first, fourth, and fifth all-time, respectively. But Fryett was able to hold the wheels for the roughly five-minute climb and, in the sprint finish came away with the win.
The Epic course is going to require Fryett to keep up with the climbers for even longer. And given how close the Overall standings are, Fryett probably isn’t the favorite to take this thing. But I’m done underestimating the only person to have won each of the Sprint, Climb, and Epic championships in Zwift Games.
I don’t think he’ll win the Epic again, but I think he will score some bonus points and finish high enough to just eek out the victory.
The Contenders
There’s a lot of competition, though, and the following riders all enter the Epic with legitimate aspirations to win the Overall (current points total/ranking in parentheses):
Lionel Vujasin (255/5): The esports GOAT is well-positioned heading into the Epic. But he hasn’t won any intermediate points yet this Zwift Games, and absent that, it’s going to be difficult to pull out the win. I’ve got Vujasin on the podium,m though.
Ruben Dhondt (256/6): Setting aside Fryett, Dhondt has been the breakout star of Zwift Games on the men’s side. The Epic suits him well, and I have him joining Fryett and Vujasin on the podium.
Jasper Paridaens (262/1): Paridaens shined in the sprint stages and maintained his lead through the climbing stages. But he’s struggled on some of the more difficult SRC courses, and there are too many elite riders breathing down his neck at the moment.
Josh Harris (257/3): Harris has been quiet but consistent this Zwift Games. He’s the only rider to have 60+ points in every stage. Similar to Vujasin, he’ll need some bonus points to challenge for the win.
Jason Osborne (249/6): You can never really count out the current World Champion and current world #1 rider. But Osborne’s poor Stage 1 (in Osborne-adjusted terms) has left a bit too much meat on the bone heading into the Epic. He could still get it done, but making up 13 points while leapfrogging five other riders is a lot of work.
Lennert Teugels (246/7): I picked Teugels to win in our preview. Similar to Osborne, he’s got a lot of work left to do, and while it’s possible the Overall win seems slightly out of reach at this point.
Once you get beyond these riders, it’s difficult to see how anyone else could craft together an Overall win, even a rider as strong as Michał Kamiński. As I’ve written, though, the intermediate KOM points are going to be critical in this final stage. Given how close the top seven riders are – separated by only 16 points – look for those KOMs to be determinative for the Overall.
Conclusion
Well, that’s it! As a reminder, you can sign up for the Pro E Cycling blog for free to receive our newsletter every Tuesday. Hope you’ve enjoyed reading, and hope you enjoy the Epic this weekend.
A quick plug: Pro E Cycling maintains a website with pro virtual cycling race results and a ranking system for pro riders. It also publishes a blog every Tuesday morning on all things virtual cycling. You can sign up for the blog (for free) on Substack here, and contact us at info@proecycling.com.
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.
