Australia go 1-2 with Vine and Ovett on top of virtual world

Australians Jay Vine and Freddy Ovett timed their final moves perfectly to overhaul defending champion Jason Osborne (Germany) late and claim a famous 1-2 in the second edition of the UCI e-sports world championships, run again on the Zwift platform.

Australian Jay Vine wins the UCI E-sports Zwift World Championships. Source: Zwift

It all came down to the final dash to the line atop the New York Knickerbocker route climb, with the 1.4-kilometre ascent seeing a six-man break enter the lower slopes with a six-man advantage. Australian duo Sam Hill and Torben Partridge-Madsen had been doing the lion's share of the pace-making to drag them back and had succeeded in bringing them to within striking range at the end of the 5-kilometre race. 

Rainer Kepplinger (Austria) attacked solo and looked like he might be heading to victory, but with Jay Vine leading a rapidly diminishing group behind, the peloton was steadily catching the lone leader. 

Defending champion Jason Osborne used an aero powerup on the flatter section near the finish line and hit out from the 300 metre mark, overhauling Kepplinger and seemingly on the way to back-to-back victories, but Vine had enough left in reserve to up the pace and overcome Osborne in the final 50 metres and take the win. Ovett followed Vine over the top of Osborne to secure a landmark 1-2 result for Australia, with Ben Hill in fourth making it three in the top four for Australia.

The 55km route on the New York Zwift course contained 944m of climbing, most of that on three laps of the finishing climb, with the steepest sections hitting 17 per cent.

The early attacks in the race didn't come to much, with any aggression quickly brought back to the peloton, with the most notable increase in tempo coming when Vine set the race alight on the second ascent of the main climb of the day.

A six-man group jumped away soon after, with 15 kilometres left to race, the sextet working their lead out to 18 seconds with 13 kilometres to go. That group consisted of Spencer Seggebruch (USA), Léandre Bouchard (Canada), Martin Maertens (Germany), Henrik Fjellhim (Norway), Jo Pirotte (Belgium) and Kepplinger.

Australia had missed the move and committed Sam Hill and Partridge-Madsen to the chase, with the pair able to drag the lead back to within 10 seconds at the base of the final climb.

Kepplinger went very deep as he attacked from the break holding above 7 watts/kg in the run up to the line, while behind him Vne was going even harder consistently over 10 w/kg, as he tried to bridge the gap.

Osbourne's powerup and attack seemingly had the German heading towards victory, but the final kick up to the line saw Vine come past him, with Ovett just grabbing Osborne on the line for the 1-2, with Hill not far back in fourth.

It wasn't an over-the-top celebration from Vine, the effort clearly telling upon his face as he warmed down to recover from the rainbow jersey-winning performance.