Matteo Dal-Cin won stage 3 of the men’s virtual Tour de France, as NTT Pro Cycling maintained the overall lead.
Dal-Cin defeated Jake Stewart (Groupama-FDJ) and Callum Scotson (Mitchelton-Scott) at the end of mostly flat 48 kilometers of the race in a sprint finish. Ryan Gibbons (NTT Pro Cycling) won stage 1 but could not win again because the intermediate sprints and climbs needed a lot of energy. He and his teammate Rasmus Tiller ended fifth and sixth, respectively. Maillot Jaune will stay with the NTT team. All the pre-race top cyclists Elia Viviani (Cofidis) and Nacer Bouhanni (Arkea-Samsic), Rudy Barbier (Israel Start-Up Nation), and Jakib Marecnzko (CCC Team) dropped off almost in the beginning of the first race on the Zwift’s new ‘France’ world, on the R.G.V. course. Egan Bernal (Team Ineos) for whom this was the first virtual race could not connect to the internet before the beginning of the TV broadcast. Overall NTT Pro Cycling had 193 points, Rally Cycling – 156, Trek – Segafredo – 127.
Adaptation of Cycling Tournaments to iGaming platforms proves everyone wrong
The COVID-19 pandemic that paused if not stopped every industry, caused big economic trouble and changed every aspect of life affected sports drastically. Tournaments and competitions in every sport, in every country, were rescheduled for the next year or completely canceled. Even the Olympic games will no longer take place in 2020.
There will be no competitions that the audience will be able to attend this year, but successful virtual competitions could be enjoyed not only on TV but also on iGaming platforms. Cycling fans would love to have more cycling competitions to look forward to even if they are just virtual competitions. Fans have the chance to play live casino online that offer integrated cycling games. Nowadays, iGaming platforms offer not only the traditional gaming forms such as poker tables, slot machines, roulettes, and others but also offer video gaming options along with adapted real-life sporting tournaments. So, while the world and especially sport, is still on hold, iGaming provides an alternative.
However, as the number of people infected with COVID-19 drops, some countries entered phase one of reopening, and are slowly renewing some tournaments. England renewed its football championship. Tour de France was a virtual Tour de France. The cyclists just connected to the internet and cycled from their homes, offices, and team bases. While the virtual Tour de France was nothing like the real one, some fans still enjoyed it. Collaboration with indoor specialists pays off for Rally at Virtual Tour de France
Rally Cycling worked hard for their Tour de France debut and won with Matteo Dal-Cin on stage 3 of the virtual Grande Boucle. US ProTeam was not on the list for the real Tour de France, but because some major teams dropped out, US ProTeam got in the list of the participants. They partnered up with the Saris + The Pro’s Closet indoor racing team and made sure their set-up was working as good as possible for the online race. Saris + The Pro’s Closet team and Wahoo did everything to set up appropriate surroundings for Dal-Cin’s team. Dal-Cin said that the team showed the cyclists how to set up the internet in order to have the least connectivity problems, how to communicate with the trainer and other details which takes a lot of time to figure out on your own. Everything worked out perfectly.
