Zwift Levies Ban Against Digitally Doping Rider
Unfortunately, it was only a matter of time before doping—well, digital doping—entered the esports arena, and that time is now. But unlike some anti-doping issues that can linger in courts for years, justice on Zwift Island is (relatively) quick.
The race in question took place in mid-November for European and African riders trying to qualify for the UCI Cycling Esports World Championship, and after a three week investigation, rider Eddy Hoole has been banned from Zwift for six months for manipulating his data during the final climb of the race.
His final climb had the nearly 6,000 viewers who tuned in to watch the race (for real) absolutely going wild. But as with many of the ‘unreal’ or ‘unbelievable' performances in cycling, if it seems too good to be true, it almost certainly is doping. To take the win, Hoole surged up hill by averaging 526 watts for four minutes and 16 seconds.
According to Road.cc, Hoole has also been dropped from his team, Toyota CRYO RDT. We’ll see if he makes a triumphant return to Zwift in May—or if he takes them up on their offer of reinstatement if he can prove in a lab setting that he can manage 8.5 watts per kilo for a solid four minutes.
To be honest, Zwift's entire public decision is pretty spicy. At first, it reads very scientific and proper, but by the finish, it is just one huge slam after another. A few favorite moments:
Zwift calling out how ridiculous the watts per kilo are
Given the rider’s weight, this equates to a sustained average power output of approx. 8.5 W/kg, a performance that requires a VO2max of over 90 mL/min/kg. For comparison, these values are significantly greater than those that have been measured for Olympic Pursuit Champions and World Record Holders (average power output over 4min, approx. 7.5 W/kg) or Tour de France GC winners (VO2max, approx. 8.5 mL/min/kg).
This 'other IRL sport' note
It is also noted that there is no circumstantial evidence that might suggest that the rider is a globally significant World Class athlete. For example, the rider does not have any IRL cycling (or other IRL sport) results, and their typical training load amounts to around 3 hours a week of low intensity cycling on Zwift.
The callout of Hoole's lack of explanation
It is also notable that at no point when presenting all of the above evidence to the rider prior to issuing this decision, did they provide any explanation as to why the data they produced was physically implausible or why the full set of Zwift data was not being transmitted from their computer to the Zwift servers.
Indeed, the only notable action taken by the rider after being presented with the above evidence, was that they then immediately deleted their entire history of over 150 publicly visible dual-recordings from ZwiftPower.
Zwift calling out a disconnect as the same thing as using a masking agent
It is notable that the disconnected channel normally carries analytics information about the riders system – in particular information such as the equipment that the rider is using. Zwift considers the absence of this analytics information to be equivalent to the presence of a masking-agent in anti-doping – for example, it would allow the rider to change their paired device from their trainer to a computer-controlled device that gave falsified power information, without such a change being recorded by Zwift’s servers.
How Zwift keeps bringing home the ‘and then, if these two devices simultaneously stopped working correctly completely coincidentally.’
For obvious reasons, it is highly unlikely that two completely independent pieces of equipment would be both so badly miscalibrated, and miscalibrated by exactly the same amount, by accident. Further, it is highly unusual that the trainer the rider used was self-calibrating, and with a manufacturer claimed accuracy of +/- 1%, and still showed such a high discrepancy between the power values it measured and the power values the rider was physically capable of producing.
The Board is comfortably satisfied that this was a result of deliberate manipulation of data, masked by the deliberate disconnection of the Zwift analytics datastream channel, rather than accidental miscalibration of two independent pieces of equipment by the same amount coupled with a coincidental accidental loss of analytics data.
And then, this gauntlet thrown:
If, within 1 month of the issuing of this decision, the rider can perform an independent laboratory test & antidoping test to the satisfaction of Zwift that shows that they are naturally physiologically capable of producing the results they have recorded in this event (including, but not limited to, an average power output of 8.5 W/kg for 4 mins), the Board will happily reverse its decision, reinstate the rider’s results, and additionally reimburse the rider for the cost of the tests.
Better get training, Eddy!
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