Triathlon has been doing an arena games/virtual world championships. They Zwift was initially the primary sponsor but they've now shifted to myWhoosh. The treadmills are the self-powered curve type. Calibration remains an issue because some athletes seem to benefit from these treadmills.
For virtual bike racing, they require multiple power meters and cameras. For the virtual rowing, for the most part each competitor is on the same model rower (Concept C2). Both of those are designed to help eliminate tech-doping. Unless they intend to hold a virtual treadmill race at a single location, where they control all the machines (and have judges to ensure that you don't lean on the machine), this will be yet another WA fiasco.
Erg races have been done for decades by rowers, indoor trainers (like zwift or rouvy etc) are terrific in winter too. They're fantastic tools for building up fitness and far easier to handle for novices, so you see athletes with big engines succeed without much skill. I'm a terrible rower and can't handle a bike but I can crush erg and zwift races with fitness alone.
This is where treadmill races don't make sense, I don't think you're going to see huge differences in fast runners and fast treadmill runners since running isn't that technical. It will probably come down to who has access to which treadmill and which treadmill program/ app.
There must be some serious sponsorship money involved for WA to consider it, since *no one* has been asking for this.
For virtual bike racing, they require multiple power meters and cameras. For the virtual rowing, for the most part each competitor is on the same model rower (Concept C2). Both of those are designed to help eliminate tech-doping. Unless they intend to hold a virtual treadmill race at a single location, where they control all the machines (and have judges to ensure that you don't lean on the machine), this will be yet another WA fiasco.
Erg races have been done for decades by rowers, indoor trainers (like zwift or rouvy etc) are terrific in winter too. They're fantastic tools for building up fitness and far easier to handle for novices, so you see athletes with big engines succeed without much skill. I'm a terrible rower and can't handle a bike but I can crush erg and zwift races with fitness alone.
This is where treadmill races don't make sense, I don't think you're going to see huge differences in fast runners and fast treadmill runners since running isn't that technical. It will probably come down to who has access to which treadmill and which treadmill program/ app.
There must be some serious sponsorship money involved for WA to consider it, since *no one* has been asking for this.
I'm guessing Zwift proposed this and offered a bunch of money, they're probably still trying to get the Zwift running thing going and tap into a whole new bunch of suckers with money and egos
This will eventually lead to only race in history where the greatest highlight will be if there is a restart (guy falls and gets shot off the back of the treadmill).