Where in the world can you watch elite male and female cyclists and triathletes competing against each other in the same race? The Digital Swiss 5 offers exactly that! Learn everything about the race format, the most prominent male and female competitors and where you can follow the races live here.
Race format
Athletes will compete in five digital races of about one hour each in Swiss cities. Each team is named for the respective host cities of Lucerne, Lugano, Lausanne, Basel and Zurich. With a maximum of six members, the teams are comprised of both male and female professional cyclists from various cycling disciplines as well as triathletes. Three riders from each of the teams will ride in the Saalsporthalle on site. The others will race at home, spread across the globe. One male and one female winner will be crowned per race. The rest of the team is spread across the globe. There will be one male and one female winner per race. The overall ranking is awarded per team, whereby the fastest times of the first two male and the time of the fastest female per team are combined in each race.
Athletes
A number of top professional cyclists and triathletes will be lining up at the start. Marlen Reusser, Jason Osborne, Mauro Schmid and Hermann Pernsteiner, who were announced a week ago, will be joined by other well-known athletes. Following is an overview of these prominent names:
Male Pros
- Jason Osborne, DE – UCI eSports World Champion 2021
- Gino Mäder, CH – stage winner Giro d’Italia, 5th Vuelta Espana
- Mauro Schmid, CH – Stage winner Giro d’Italia
- Hermann Pernsteiner, AT – 10th Giro d’Italia 2020
Female Pros
- Marlen Reusser, CH – 1. ITT EM 2021, 2nd ITT Olympia Tokyo, 2. ITT WM 2021,
6th UCI World Ranking - Marta Bastianelli, IT – Winner 2nd stage Tour de Suisse Women, 5th Paris-Roubaix
- Mavi Garcia, SP – 1st Strade Bianche 2020, 1st Giro Emilia 2021
Triathletes
- Hayden Wilde, NZE – 3rd Olympic Triathlon Tokyo
- Marten van Riel, BE – 4th Olympic Triathlon Tokyo
- Nina Derron, CH – 27th Ironman Hawaii 2019, 2nd Chur-Arosa 2020
Most of all the spirit of competition is present, as Marten van Riel says leading up to his first digital cycling event: “I love competing and I think that digital races are part of the future. My goal is to make the race exciting. I don’t want to wait for a final sprint. I will give everything from the start”. Hermann Pernsteiner is of the same opinion: “Of course I’ll give everything, even though it might hurt a lot after the training break”. The complete line-up as well as the team breakdown can be found at https://www.digital-swiss-5.ch/pro-race/
Live Coverage
Following is the schedule for the entire weekend including broadcast details:
