First British Cycling e-racing champion stripped for cheating

Good luck with that, and thanks for stopping by to share your opinion :kissing_closed_eyes:

7 Likes

Totally my pleasure.

But Iā€™ll keep my opinion of how pathetic it is to cheat at a video GAME in the first place to myself.

:beers:

2 Likes

What he did to get a tiny % of improvement by getting a better ā€œbikeā€ was stupid and dishonest. Riding a different zwift bike isnā€™t the same as doping though.

IRL amateurs purchase speed all the time. How many middle age crit heroes roll on SWorks and ENVEs against guys on 10 year old clapped out rigs who just canā€™t afford it?

Pro teams are maximizing every jersey seam, shoe cover, and chain wax formula to get an edge. Many pros are outspoken about what they believe to be the advantages/disadvantages of their kit.

Equipment isnā€™t equal at any level of the sport. Kierin is about as close as it gets.

3 Likes

Wait so he ā€œcheatedā€ before the rule existed? Then banned him? Is that confusing?
Not defending him at all but is there a specific eWADA code for that?

I use Zwift a lot. For training but I also know that there are more than one eDoper so how can a eChampionship ever be fair

2 Likes

Zwift racing is very fair, but if you race the only results you look at are on zwiftpower.com where you can register, link to your Strava account for IRL performance validation, post weigh ins, and provide multiple source data verification. Itā€™s not a perfect solution but if something is off itā€™s pretty obvious. The new expectation for IRL ride data access is a big step.

Also worth considering that most of the top guys racing are all elites and pretty easy to vet.

1 Like

DC Rainmaker:

using automation or bots in place of human performances in Zwift is against the Zwift Terms of Service (and has been for a very long time), so regardless of anything British Cycling or UCI puts forth, this by itself is ground for termination of Cam Jeffers account.

Yup, confusing, because Jeffersā€™ Zwift account should have been terminated and thus leaving him completely unable to even enter the competition, let alone ā€œwinā€ the championship.

:beers:

2 Likes

so can he appeal his UCI ruling and go to CAS? hahahaā€¦
what a time to be alive.

The championship he won had them all riding in the same studio with cameras on them. Iā€™m going to assume they were all on the same (properly calibrated) smart bike/trainer and had a weigh in as well. So at that level itā€™s very fair. Agree that people racing from home with self declared weight and using a whole range of different PMs has a lot more scope for deliberate or accidental data quality issues.

1 Like

This is yet another reason why inviting traditional cycling governing bodies into ā€œecyclingā€ (canā€™t believe Iā€™m even using that termā€¦) was a mistake.

If you want digital racing to work, it has to work like esports work now, not like bike racing (which is barely functional from a rules perspective to begin with e.g. the follow car rule)

Esports pros never have to grind to unlock characters they can use in competition. That is basically what Zwift is saying the competitor should have needed to do in this instance. Yes, the guy broke the rules to unlock the bike, but he never should have needed to in the first place.

There are tournament servers and machines and accounts for dealing with these issues. Did no one at Zwift look at the massive amount of public information thatā€™s been available for almost a decade around the best practices for running esports events?

/rant over

21 Likes

And another :+1: cuz TR only lets me give one and Iā€™m too lazy to find a bot to hack their code so I can give your post more ā€œlikeā€.

I like to think of the ā€˜eā€™ in ecycling as ā€˜entertainmentā€™.

And in Jeffersā€™ situation, eracing turned into erasing.

1 Like

echeating.

Standard equipment argument applies to real racing and all sports too. Itā€™s bad for business and innovation though.

Maybe also gives some athletes an unfair advantage ironically as the chosen equip suits their style or physique better.

Iā€™m with you. Iā€™m finding @Captain_Doughnutmanā€™s comments pretty unwelcoming. If it sounds like a bully and walks like a bullyā€¦:disappointed:

4 Likes

I watched quite a lot of these qualifying races, plus the live final.

Cam was actually quite new to Zwift and fairly inexperienced. He didnā€™t qualify initially, came 12th, in part due to a bad decision to use an ā€˜aeroā€™ power up at the wrong time. He then got promoted to the finals for some reason (never explained by BC - sure it had nothing to do with the extra publicity the event would get!)

I worked for months to get my Tron bike, so Iā€™m disappointed by his behaviour. But in (official) racing terms you cannot have a ā€˜pay/play to winā€™. Everyone needs to have access to the same equipment, it shouldnā€™t be blocked became you havenā€™t spent $ on the platform. Same as real life, you have to have access to the same equipment.

In summary:

  • He was on the same bike as everyone else (or a slower bike)
  • All equipment was controlled by the event organiser/turbos/laptops
  • It made no difference to the outcome of the race, he won by a large margin
  • He didnā€™t even qualify anyway!

The punishment doesnā€™t fit the crime at all.

Something more sensible IMO:

Removal of the Tron bike and requirement to re-obtain it within a time frame (this is months of work). If they had done this over the summer it would have impacted his road race season and been a proper punishment.
Fine & Warning form British Cycling

4 Likes

I think this is less about the bike he used, but more about his conduct. Using an ant+ sim is bringing BC into disrepute. If DCR is correct that he rode 200km at 2000W with a weight of 45kg logged in at multiple locations and quickly deleted the rides then that implies he knew what he was doing was wrong.

10 Likes

On a micro level yes, but itā€™s bigger than one rider. You canā€™t have a botter being the e-racing winner, especially when heā€™s using gear won from botting in the race. Botters are the scourge of gaming.

It sets a zero tolerance precedent. And generally yes itā€™s unsporting, like using a stolen bike in a bike race.

Cycling has an image problem and guys like Cam are taking that image problem over to esports. Thatā€™s the real issue here. No one really cares about this guy, itā€™s about a sport thatā€™s about to take off and heā€™s dragged it into a place no one wanted to be before a itā€™s even had a chance.

Like you said, he didnā€™t even qualify, but they threw him a bone, and he repaid them with negative publicity.

5 Likes

Itā€™s tricky to discuss this in isolation but e-racing does need further work. For example a few of his competitors raced in New York for Zwift, and were found to be 2-3kg heavier than their self reported ā€˜racingā€™ weight. One person was 8kg over!

I did find it strange how he won so comprehensively on the day, against people who beat him regularly in the qualifiers. However, via Cams videos, we know he was very accurate with his weight (he put it all online) but perhaps his competitors were not. But on the day everyone had to be weighted so it was a level playing field.

2 Likes

Then letā€™s have the names of the riders youā€™re referring to, their race weights, and the evidence that supports the real weight each rider was at at the time of racing.

Then we can go there and see about sanctions. Zero tolerance doesnā€™t mean eschewing proof.

Until we have saddles or bikes with sensors that weigh the riders as they race, then the weight issue isnā€™t something we can deal with right now, except for the live events.

I lost interest when ā€œsomeone else logged into my accountā€

The guy is young and who hasnā€™t made a stupid decision at that age? My daughter, who is 18 and has my unconditional love, sometimes makes my jaw drop in her decision making but as a parent I donā€™t pass judgment.

ā€œTo be old and wise you first have to be young and stupidā€

6 Likes

image https://media1.tenor.com/images/edfe140f2c85ab36dd05e2f1d4ff7351/tenor.gif?itemid=5439754

The world will forever be divided into those who believe in their own interpretation of the spirit of the law, versus the word of the law.