Rose Adegeest of the Netherlands and Bjorn Andreasson of Denmark will wear Zwift's virtual rainbow jerseys next year after winning the 2023 UCI Cycling Esports World Championships.

FDJ-Suez road rider Adegeest successfully defended the title he won last year by taking the lead in a three-man sprint in the 12.3 km final race on Zwift's hilly Glasgow-Klit circuit.

The 26-year-old, who won her first Women's World Tour title at the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race in January, held off Zoe Langham (GBR) to take the win, with Jacqueline Godbe (USA) taking bronze.

In the men's race, Andreasson took a very different tactic, jumping out of the final group of 10 just after the start, establishing a consistent rhythm and avoiding the stop-start sprints of an elimination race. [Behind him, the Germans took the silver and bronze medals, won by former world champions Jason Osborne and Marc Meding.

"Attacking from the start is kind of my signature move," Andreasson said after the final race. "I do it a lot. I can open up a gap early and no one tries to follow me at the start. I'm on a mountain bike now, so it's not too different from starting on a mountain bike."

"I knew that if I got caught in a group, I would at least put out as much power as I would in a sprint and that would be more difficult. The more sprints you can fly from the front, the better. I kept doing that as long as I could. After the last sprint, the gap was so big that I was able to hold on to the finish line. It was crazy."

Women's Race

In the women's race, 86 athletes started in the first of three races. The U.S. (4) and Great Britain (2) had the numerical advantage in the finals, making up more than half of the total.

However, their numbers were quickly whittled down, with Britain's Lou Bates the first to retire with a technical problem, followed at the start by Americans Kristen Kurczynski and Liz Van Houweling.

Unlike the men's Andreasson move, there was no long-distance effort; full groups competed in sprints lap by lap.

Sandrine Etienne of France dropped out in the next sprint, leaving Godbe, Langham, and Adejest to battle for the rainbow jersey with 1.6 km to go.

The entry into the final straight was tense, with none of the remaining trio wanting to challenge a long attack, and it came down to a final sprint. In the end, Langham took the lead, and Adejisto, the winner of the second race, quickly responded.

She showed tact and power in the finale, shaking off Langham, who appeared to be going too fast in the final meters.

Men's Race

Andreasson, 21, was consistent in the first two races of the new three-race format on Zwift's Scottish course, taking the first race (in which Lotto-Dostony pro Victor Kampenaerts unexpectedly lost early) ), and 9th in the second race to advance to the grand finale.

He was arguably the strongest man in the final race, jumping out of the start and distancing himself from the pack of 10.

While the rest of the field sprinted twice a lap to try to avoid being eliminated, Andreasson kept exerting himself incessantly, as if he were doing a time trial, and took a 13-second lead at the halfway point of the 12.3km finale.

At that point, favorite Freddy Ovett (South Africa) had dropped out of the sprint, and the remaining chase group was forced to accelerate and recover twice a lap.

Andreasson's lead over the rest of the field dropped to just over a second at one point, but Andreasson continued to run away and was still in the lead by 14 seconds when the field of 10 was reduced to three

After just under 17 minutes of racing, Andreasson won by 16.7 seconds over Osborne

[5 Osborn passed his German teammate Meding at the death to take second place.

.