Her victory is well deserved, but from what I can tell in the Olympics isn't it the case that unless they're right in front of you contestants have no way of knowing if they're even winning? This could be a case of #2 and #3 falling from the lead and not even realizing they're #2 and #3, and rather thinking they're #1 and #2. If they knew their true positions it's possible the outcome could've been different.
Anna Kiesenhofer: Mathematician, amateur cyclist, Olympic champion
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Re: Anna Kiesenhofer: Mathematician, amateur cyclist, Olympic champion
#12It might be interesting to recall that Alan Turing was an Olympics team contender for 1948~1949
Re: Anna Kiesenhofer: Mathematician, amateur cyclist, Olympic champion
#13"After Shapira and Plichta were caught by the remainder of the peloton the rest of the riders seemed to believe that they were racing amongst themselves for Gold, unaware that Kiesenhofer was still in front." Not saying she shouldn't had won, but when nobody is pursuing you, it is much easier to win. We have seen in the men race that even when people know there is one person in front, 80% of the riders prefer not to…
The big difference between typical pro races and the Olympics is that in the Olympics the riders don’t race with radios, which made this situation possible. In a typical pro race, the team director would be telling his riders there is still someone up the road.
Re: Anna Kiesenhofer: Mathematician, amateur cyclist, Olympic champion
#14"After Shapira and Plichta were caught by the remainder of the peloton the rest of the riders seemed to believe that they were racing amongst themselves for Gold, unaware that Kiesenhofer was still in front." Not saying she shouldn't had won, but when nobody is pursuing you, it is much easier to win. We have seen in the men race that even when people know there is one person in front, 80% of the riders prefer not to…
Not saying she shouldn't had won, but when nobody is pursuing you, it is much easier to win.
She certainly benefited from a mistake by the other competitors, but “much easier” is surely a big exaggeration. You could equally well say it’s much harder to win the race when you’re out by yourself, with nobody to chase, nobody to set the pace, and no pack to draft with.
If she hadn’t cycled the race of her life, she would have been caught.
Re: Anna Kiesenhofer: Mathematician, amateur cyclist, Olympic champion
#15Her victory is well deserved, but from what I can tell in the Olympics isn't it the case that unless they're right in front of you contestants have no way of knowing if they're even winning? This could be a case of #2 and #3 falling from the lead and not even realizing they're #2 and #3, and rather thinking they're #1 and #2. If they knew their true positions it's possible the outcome could've been different.
>if they knew their true positions it's possible the outcome could've been different.
That is part of the sport. riders keep up with time gaps on boards from the motos, they go back to their team car for information (and water), count the riders getting brought back, they talk with their team mates or even other teams about the situation. Radioless races are run differently, but the favourites forgetting the road leader is not common and embarrassing.
Re: Anna Kiesenhofer: Mathematician, amateur cyclist, Olympic champion
#16Being a pro athlete competing and winning at an event like Olympics and pursing a post doc in a tough field like mathematics is an achievement lot more interesting than whether she is really amateur
Re: Anna Kiesenhofer: Mathematician, amateur cyclist, Olympic champion
#17It might be interesting to recall that Alan Turing was an Olympics team contender for 1948~1949
Yes, let's use the opportunity this article about this successful woman has provided us to talk about successful men instead. Great suggestion.
Re: Anna Kiesenhofer: Mathematician, amateur cyclist, Olympic champion
#18Some additional context for those who don't follow professional cycling: the Dutch women's team was incredibly strong coming into this road race. All 4 riders on their team are stars in their own right, and the only reason there wasn't a clear favorite for the race overall is that people weren't sure which Dutch rider would win.
So you have a complicated group dynamic, where the majority of the peloton has no interest in pulling the group to catch the break, since they would just get beat by one or more of the Dutch riders, and the Dutch riders didn't seem to have a clear plan on how to control the race and who would sacrifice their chances and work on the front for the rest of the team.
As others have said, there were no radios allowed for riders in the race, so all information about the breakaway came from the race director's car trailing the peloton. This was a well known fact about the race coming in, and it's the same way that the annual World Championship race is run. It's normal for riders to drop back to the team car to get information about the break, and the lead moto for a group of cyclists will occasionally show time gaps on a whiteboard.
At least one of the Dutch riders claimed to have known about the lone rider off the front [1], but somehow that information didn't make it to the rest of the team. It seems that most of the peloton didn't know (or didn't care) how many riders were up the road, and the Dutch team failed to communicate amongst themselves and establish a plan.
All that leads to Kiesenhofer's solo move working out. All credit to her for an extremely strong ride.
[1]https://netherlandsnewslive.com/miscommunication-and-underes...
Re: Anna Kiesenhofer: Mathematician, amateur cyclist, Olympic champion
#19"After Shapira and Plichta were caught by the remainder of the peloton the rest of the riders seemed to believe that they were racing amongst themselves for Gold, unaware that Kiesenhofer was still in front." Not saying she shouldn't had won, but when nobody is pursuing you, it is much easier to win. We have seen in the men race that even when people know there is one person in front, 80% of the riders prefer not to…
Tactics are as important as strength in cycling. The strongest person doesn't always win.
Re: Anna Kiesenhofer: Mathematician, amateur cyclist, Olympic champion
#20It might be interesting to recall that Alan Turing was an Olympics team contender for 1948~1949
Yes, let's use the opportunity this article about this successful woman has provided us to talk about successful men instead. Great suggestion.
No offense intended, it seems my comment has upset you or someone else who has been downvoting unrelated comments.
Turing is a person of interest here, for obvious reasons, so did not think it would be out of place. Gender identity was the last thing on my mind.
There are some similarities, a mathematician, amateur sportsman in an Olympics, don't you think ? Turing's running mates were quite unaware of his technical and academic contributions, partly due to the secrecy of his wartime contributions.
If women athletes with academic accomplishments interest you, you may checkout Corinna Cortes. She is VP at Google Research, known for her foundational work in machine learning, support vector machines in particular. She is Danish, if that matters to you.