Tens of kilometers on a digital track in the Russian WattAttack simulator, repeated changes of leaders and a significant contribution of athletes to the overall success of their teams – this is how Indoor Cycling turned out. This is a discipline of the extended program of Games of the Future, in which the first winner of the international multisport phygital tournament was determined on Thursday, February 22.
According to the rules of the competition, 12 teams had to go through four stages: individual time trial, elimination race, one-way race (mass start), a criterium (a race with an intermediate finish). The final distribution of places was determined by the total points scored by all four team members. To overcome the digital track, the participants pedaled on a real bicycle in the URAM extreme park. The prize fund of the tournament is $150 thousand, of which the winner got $50.5 thousand.
The men’s individual race was won by Daniele Ratto from the Italian Espresso team. With the passionate support of his compatriots, he covered the kilometer circle in exactly one minute. At the end of the stage, Ratto beat the second athlete, Alessandro Barra from another Italian team, Watt Kernels, by five seconds. In the women’s competition, Anna Terekh from the Belarus team overcame the individual race the fastest (1:09). According to the rules of the competition, the winners earned 24 points each.
After the elimination race, Belarus took the lead. Primarily due to the powerful performance of Taisa Naskovich and Anna Terekh, who took the first two places in the women’s competition. The main pursuers of the Belarusians were two Italian teams and the Russian Marathon-Tula.
“This is our first time at such a large-scale event as Games of the Future, and we are very interested. The atmosphere of the competition is encouraging, which helped me take the lead. However, you have to fight with yourself more, so the virtual track has its own subtleties and tricks,” Anna Terekh shared her impressions. “Games of the Future has great prospects, this is a great event. We were given a good reception in Kazan, but we didn’t have time to see the city yet, only from the bus while we were driving. Tomorrow we have the first half of the day free, so we hope to enjoy the beauty.”
The scratch race with a massive start and one finish remained with the Russians: the first places were taken by Evgenia Mudraya from Solomon Team and Petr Rikunov (Marathon-Tula), who still beat Daniel Benedetti from Watt Kernels and Evgeny Sobol (Belarus) in a tense fight. But another rider of the Belarusian team, Mikhail Shemetov, came only 23rd, for which he received only two points. Thus, before the final stage, Italian Espresso topped the overall standings. Belarus and Watt Kernels were only three points behind them, and Marathon-Tula dropped to the fourth position.
In the last race, the participants had to collect the most points at the intermediate finishes. This stage was the most “expensive” in terms of the overall standings. Two athletes showed outstanding results: Petr Rikunov earned 152 points, and Anna Terekh – 151. Together with the successes of Taisa Naskovich (114) and Gulnaz Khatuntseva (98), this brought the Minsk and Tula teams to the top two lines of the final protocol.
“I am very glad to stand at the origins of a new discipline, to feel like a pioneer. Games of the Future is a very important event, and then it will become even more significant,” European champion, Olympic bronze medalist Gulnaz Khatuntseva is sure.
Belarus has become the first ever winner of the Games of the Future Trophy! Marathon-Tula took the second place, the expressive Italian Espresso remained third.
“There is a Russian film about Gagarin, where he says: “Thousands will fly, but they will remember the first one.” It’s the same for us,” Evgeny Sobol shared his feelings with a TASS correspondent. “Of course, the support of the guys helped a lot, we have a close-knit team, you could feel it. There were difficult, crisis moments, but with such support, although I did not understand where the strength came from, I could not let down.”
Indoor Cycling results:
1. Belarus – 522 points
Evgeny Sobol, Anna Terekh, Mikhail Shemetov, Taisa Naskovich
2. Marathon-Tula – 469
Petr Rikunov, Gulnaz Khatuntseva, Sergey Rostovcev, Diana Klimova
3. Italian Espresso – 425
Riccardo Panizza, Selene Colombi, Daniel Ratto, Laura Boz
4. Spain – 393
Evgeny Tikhonin, Inna Abaydullina, Luis Ortega Anton, Margarita Lopez Llull
5. Watt Kernels – 373
Alessandro Barra, Sophie Giovane, Daniel Benedetti, Rocio Berbel Alt
6. CouCou Cycling – 349
Ivan Seledkov, Maria Malysheva, Timofey Ivanov, Ekaterina Gurenkova
7. Solomon Team – 263
Abdullozon Akparov, Evgenia Mudraya, Yuri Trofimov, Maria Averina
8. Matos Mobility – 210
Nuno Torres, Mirelly Ferreira, Davidson Ovidor, Diana Pedrosa
9. Argentina – 124
Adrian Gonzalez Velasco, Luciana Roland, Aleksandr Porsev, Carolina Ines Perez
10. Mix Team – 100
Oliver Samuel Robinson, Alina Lysenko, Xavier Llobet, Mariya Rostovceva
11. Qazaqstan – 96
Iogan Shtein, Akpeiil Ossim, Maxim Konkin, Faina Potapova
12. Tashkent City – 79
Davirjan Abdurakhmanov, Asal Rizaeva, Daniil Fedorov, Ekaterina Knebeleva
Information:
Games of the Future is an international multisport tournament in the phygital concept, a sports show of a new format combining competitions in physical and digital dimensions. The technology partner is VK Play. More than 270 teams and more than 2,000 athletes from 107 countries are taking part in 21 innovative disciplines in the first Games of the Future. The competitions are divided into five categories, or challenges: sports, tactical, battle, technical, speedrun.
Title Sponsor is PAO Gazprom
General Sponsors:
PAO Gazprom Neft G-Drive
PAO Sibur Holding Sibur
OAO Russian Railways
OOO VK Company VK Play
PAO Sberbank SBER
OOO PMBK (Liga Stavok)
OOO INTERROS Holding Company Interros
PAO Megafon Yota
Official sponsors:
OOO PBO System– Vkusno – i Tochka
PAO Sollers / UAZ
PAO Aeroflot
OOO Wildberries
OOO NTS Gradient – Influence
Roscosmos State Corporation
AO Positive Technologies
AO Russian Post
OOO Nanobarrier – HyDrop
AO Kaspersky Laboratory – Kaspersky
More information about the tournament can be found on the official channels of Games of the Future: