S I MONE BO I LARD

In September 2018, Quebec City’s Simone Boilard took bronze in the junior women’s world championship road race in Innsbruck, Austria. Roughly five months later, she won in a virtual Innsbruck.

Boilard and three other teammates from Sho-air Twenty20 competed in Round 2 of the Zwift Kiss Super League this past February. It was set in Zwift’s Innsbruck world on the Innsbruckring route. As with an irl race, the teammates worked together by covering attacks and leading out sprints. But unlike an irl race, they could also use power-ups. Boilard won the Zwfit race and her teammate Erica Clevenger was third. Afterwards, Boilard said, jokingly, that the win was redemption for her third place at worlds. She did, however, seriously enjoy the virtual racing.

“I was super impressed by the format of these races in the comfort of my own house,” she said. “The Zwift races feel like real racing, but shorter and harder. In fact, the effort is really condensed. It gets you out of your comfort zone right from the start. The biggest difference with real racing is the power-ups, but they add to the fun. It becomes not only about watts, but also about strategies for using your power-ups. That’s what’s nice about Zwift: racing becomes a game.”