Twice in the last 2 weeks, Zwift/Zwift Power has screwed up my results in races (that I have evidence for). What about my 200+ other races where I haven’t looked as closely/don’t have recordings and those of 10000s of other racers? Should we trust results? Are they just random nonsense?
2 weeks ago in the Herd Summer Racing League (results based on FTS points on each lap for primes and finishing points) on a 2 lap race of Casse Pattes, I entered the Marina Sprint at the end of the first lap at 37:27 and finished the sprint at 37:41 as shown in the following link (set to start at the entry into the sprint):
. After I finished, the results list on the left hand side of the screen said I’d finished the segment in 13.50 seconds, which is in line with the start and finish times if you take into account fractions of a second. Not spectacular, but fast enough that it should have been 3rd in FTS for that segment on that lap.
So you can imagine that I was surprised after the race was over to check the Zwift Power results
https://zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=2980572 and see that I was listed in 6th for that segment with a time of 17.040 and a couple of the people ahead of me were people that I started the sprint segment after and finished before (i.e. I passed them during the sprint).
I contacted the race organizer who said that it was extremely unlikely that I’d have exactly the same time for the 1st and 2nd time through the Marina Sprint (1st time through I also finished in 13.50 according to the onscreen display and Zwift Power) and the difference must be due to the difference between what my local computer was showing and what the server had. I thought it was equally unlikely that lag would cost me 3.5 seconds in a ~15 second sprint (20-25% of the segment) and, if it did, how the heck are we supposed to trust when we should be sprinting in any segment?
I didn’t push it with him because those few prime points that I missed out on wouldn’t have pushed me from 2nd to 1st in the final standings.
Then there was last night’s fiasco. I race in Americas East, so I wasn’t part of the Oceana race where people got sent off in 3 different directions. Instead, I had just your average crappy race (got dropped from the front pack up the 1st KoM, caught back on, got dropped up the 2nd KoM, and came within a couple seconds of catching on right before the final sprint but didn’t quite do it) until the finish when everything turned to a flaming dumpster fire. I crossed the finish line in 15th at 38:47 (or so I thought) with a couple FTS points for the sprint (link to just before the finish – please pardon the anemic “sprint” to the line:
), but, when the results popped up onto the screen, my name was nowhere to be found.
Yes, I did go all the way through the blue virtual banner because why else would the results pop up on screen? Confused, I checked the Zwift Power results, and I wasn’t there (except for 8th in the sprint FTS). Looking at the live results, it said I was still out on the course.
I figured that somehow it didn’t register my finish and I wanted to earn at least some points for my team (3 from FTS and 1 for participation is less than the 23 I should have gotten, but better than none), so I rode the course for ~1.5 more laps before quitting so that it would show me crossing the finish a 2nd time (and doing the full distance a 2nd time) in case that was what was needed to show up. I finished and saved the ride after 63 km. In the ride summary (where it shows your PRs if you got them and all the ride ons you got) it shows “Completed Event”
but I’m still not listed in the results.
Even this morning, when I go to Zwift Power and look at the live results for the event (
https://zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=2994808 ), it shows me as abandoning the race at 26.1 km (race length was 26.145) 1 min 30s after I crossed the finish line, when my ride actually continued for 37 more km and over an hour more time as is shown in the recording and my Strava results.
So that’s twice in 2 weeks that I haven’t gotten full (or any in one case) credit for my efforts. If I were to go back through all my other races, would I find more of the same? What about if everyone else did? Would there be lots of this? Would it render the results of all races meaningless? How am I supposed to trust Zwift and Zwift Power for results when they can’t get this sort of thing right?