Shorter people are more aerodynamic.
2 Likes
I disagree. Is it lying to cover your ass? Yeah for sure and they definitely shouldnât have done that and should have just taken the DQ.
Cheating would have impacted the results, which in this scenario, did not appear to happen.
It just seems incredibly stupid and overblown by Zwift to do this, especially when the reason why people even need to do this in the first place is because they havent built a system to handle it.
1 Like
Ray Maker does a nice job of describing the lengths these two and their teams went to to hide the truth.
I donât know how you could describe these actions as anything other than cheating.
1 Like
Nice of them to tell all the cheats to modify their Version ID before sending them in.
I think the best response is a slow clap and never to enter races these cheats are in.
Theres always someone apologising for the cheats. The rest of us avoid it by the extremely arduous task ofâŚnot cheating.
1 Like
Only 2!?
I remember riding on Zwift when I started out back in 2016 and getting a group ride and just being floored by what some of the people on there were doing as far as W/kg. It was astonishing. I did a few races, but once I needed to actually train I moved to TR.
My kids complain about cheaters and hackers in Fortnite and COD tooâŚI assume many in Zwift are cheating as wellâŚIâm not upset about it. The VAST majority of Zwifters donât cheat. Cheating happens IRL too.
Part of doing business I suppose. Nice to see Zwift trying to keep Watopia level.
Iâm not apologizing for anyone. I think they deserve to get DQâd and they didnât have the back up files. They made a bad decision to try and modify and submit and certainly I donât think thatâs kosher either.
However, from what Iâve read, there was no intent to modify power to impact the race nor is there evidence of such manipulation that would have resulted in the actual on course race results changing.
Iâm trying to draw a distinction here between a secondary data compliance infraction (which is what this appears to be) and an active desire to influence race results (which does not appear to have happened)
From DCR himself
Just to reiterate myself in case itâs not clear
- They deserve a DQ
- They shouldnât have tried to modify and submit the power file as a secondary
- They didnât follow the rules
- 6 months seems way too harsh for a secondary data compliance infraction
- This is also Zwiftâs fault for being slower than molasses in the North Pole for implementing anything even remotely relevant to what their community wants
7 Likes
I dont want to get into a thing with anyone on this, so lets just agree on this point.
No and no. Zwift has all sorts of problems, but nothing that Zwift has or has not done justifies anyone breaking the rules. âThey made me cheat.â
1 Like
Iâm not arguing that anything is justified
Iâm just saying if Zwift and organizing bodies are going to require dual-recording, then they should implement dual-recording in the darn platform.
3 Likes
That we can agree on. Zwift has much opportunity for improvement.
Typica from al software company who have issues delivering featuresâŚ
imo if youâre not the top echelon (pun intended) of riders on zwift, âcheatingâ doesnât really matter. if youâre cat B or lower, someone is already right on the cusp of the next cat & could put out the same numbers / performance.
not saying itâs ok, but youâre likely going to lose to someone if theyâre cheating or if theyâre just better than you.
Hereâs a version of the events from one of the riders involved, obviously theyâre going to see things differently but worth a read nonetheless.
1 Like
Convenient to have had âa friend [who] offered to help me retain the full race fileâ. Sorry, doesnât wash - youâre the athlete participating, and youâre responsible for the power files you submit. You know how important the files are for verification, so if a friend offers to âmergeâ the files for you (and from DCRainmakerâs analysis, it seems unlikely that anyone just âmergedâ a recovered file) you should be asking questions.
2 Likes
This for me is the key paragraph:
âThey then sent me a message asking if I was sure that it was the correct file so I downloaded it from Zwiftpower into training peaks and looked at it properly. I realised it had the GPS map which doesnât happen on the secondary power source (the Garmin) and initially thought it must have been a duplicate recording of the Zwift race file from my Wahoo Kickr. I told Zada not to use it, explaining I had seen the GPS map on it so it must be an incorrect file.â
If she can back up this version of events, e.g. prove that she sent the âoops my bad donât use that fileâ email, it would present things in a different light. Without that, Iâm mildly sceptical of the explanation.
1 Like
Wouldnât shock me if that was the case either. Whoever at zwift was in charge of answering her âoops donât use that fileâ email probably canât do it until they receive another round of funding.
1 Like
As the incentives to cheat increase, cheaters will get increasingly ingenious on the ways that they cheat.
And aside from cheating, thereâs also the honest differences in calibration between devices, whether thatâs power meters or weighing scales (much more of the problem with the former).
There are too many variables to eliminate to make cycling esports a level competitive playing field, where no party has an unwarranted advantage over another, intentional or not.
Really, the only way to do so is to bring athletes to a central location(s) where they use certified equipment in a secure environment. But that kinda defeats the benefits of esports which is allow athletes to compete remotely.
Why didnât these riders just take the DQ rather than jump through all these hoops of trying to submit a fake file?
Is there money on the line?
3 Likes
5 Likes