500 watts for 1 hour? American rider stuns and could become E-Sports indoor World Champion this weekend

This Saturday, some of the world's best indoor racers in cycling will gather in Abu Dhabi for the E-Sports World Championships. Whilst this involves a different skillset than other disciplines in the sport, it by no means refutes the incredible power that the riders have. In particular, the United States of America are having Hayden Pucker represented, a rider who can hold 500 watts for an entire hour. 

A rider who in the past has tried out for cycling and running, but has never truly found his ground in neither at a young age. “In 2018, I spent a year travelling across the country trying to earn enough points to make the U.S. World Championship team. I even did online school for two years so I could keep competing," Pucker said in an interview with CyclingWeekly. 

A high-level taekwondo athlete at the same time, it doesn't come as a surprise that his physique is quite different than most riders. He is said to weight 87Kg at a height of 1.85 meters, but this is all weight that he takes advantage of and is not looking to lose. 

"I embrace the identity of being an elite cyclist who does not look like a cyclist at all, and I love that I can put out big power numbers. I take pride in all of that; I don’t want to lose weight and be skinny. I want to see how much power I can possibly generate". His credentials? “I’ll hold 500 watts for an hour on the trainer".

Such numbers blow out the grand majority, if not the entire World Tour peloton. Of course, road cycling involves an amount of skill and experience that cannot be instantly learned, but for a rider of his ability, there is a very solid base to make a transition. If not the road, most likely the track would be a very good fit, whilst he has also taken a few steps on the American gravel racing scene to experiment - although it did not go well. 

“I tried to do The Traka gravel race this year, but I realized quickly I don’t have the bike handling skills for a course like that," he admits. "I also started at Unbound Gravel this year, but I crashed five miles into the race, and that solidified for me that my focus moving forward will be esports racing on the trainer".