News: With the German Cycling Academy, the BDR is breaking new ground and officially taking on the eSports topic. The GCA will be introduced as a pilot project in order to integrate the topic of eCycling into German top (cycling) sports.
With the founding of the German Cycling Academy, the Federation of German Cyclists presents the first systematic eSports application in German top-class sport. An innovative digital platform is to be created here in order to use the eCycling trend, for example platforms such as Zwift, to open up new target groups and perspectives for established club cycling.
To this end, the BDR, in cooperation with the partners involved, is now designing and testing association-relevant eCycling competition and training formats under the umbrella of the “German Cycling Academy”. Formats that, in addition to opening up new target groups, are primarily intended to identify new talent for top-class sport. Professionals also support the topic and are included in the pilot project.
The participants of the German Cycling Academy benefit from the entire sports science know-how of the BDR and its trainers, accompanied by a new, "digital" head coach: Tim Böhme, until 2018 professional cyclist and German mountain bike champion marathon 2015. Tim told us in the Connection exclusively what his new title and the GCA is all about.
"I am happy that I can contribute my experience from top-class and popular sports to this exciting e-sports project and that I am part of the pioneering work of the BDR in eCycling." - Tim Böhme
In addition to the BDR, the Innovationsmanufaktur from Munich and Pantera Rosa from Frankfurt am Main are involved in the conception and communication of the research project. The project is funded by the Federal Institute for Sports Science based on a resolution of the German Bundestag.
"The aim of the German Cycling Academy is to set up a talent scouting program and to use a monitoring system to discover the next German cycling star.
In addition, we want to get many people to cycle with an attractive GCA Club program and thus appeal to everyone.” – Tim Böhme
As the first competition-based pilot project of the German Cycling Academy, they will take part in the Zwift National Cup on February 24.02.2019th, XNUMX - the first digitally held championship on what is probably the most well-known and e-cycling platform with the most members worldwide.
