Interesting preparation twitter thread by Anna Kiesenhofer on body temperature
https://twitter.com/AnnaKiesenhofer/status/14113592085247262...
Anna Kiesenhofer: Mathematician, amateur cyclist, Olympic champion
21–30 of 179 posts
Re: Anna Kiesenhofer: Mathematician, amateur cyclist, Olympic champion
#22Great performance, thrilling race, well done!
Re: Anna Kiesenhofer: Mathematician, amateur cyclist, Olympic champion
#23It 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.
The fact that she's a woman doesn't make this interesting. (Woman winning women's cycling wouldn't be much news.) The reason this is interesting is because she's a Mathematician and an amateur.
Re: Anna Kiesenhofer: Mathematician, amateur cyclist, Olympic champion
#24It 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.
It seems like a pertinent interesting side fact about mathematicians at the Olympics. The list is obviously pretty small.
Re: Anna Kiesenhofer: Mathematician, amateur cyclist, Olympic champion
#25Some 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 interes…
All this is true but it doesnt stop painting the Dutch riders (and the rest of the peloton) as very amateur. It is not about resources, people like van Vleuten or Voss receive resources (money, sponsorship,equipment) than 99.9% of cyclists in the world will never see (both men and women) and yet they made a schoolboy mistake here. When you compare that to the men's event it could be practically be a different sport.
Re: Anna Kiesenhofer: Mathematician, amateur cyclist, Olympic champion
#26It might be interesting to recall that Alan Turing was an Olympics team contender for 1948~1949
Honest question: why would this be interesting in this context?
(Edit: check the follow-up comments to see why I wasn't as surprised as others about Ms. Kiesenhofer being both sportswomen and active academic and therefore did not make the connection with Mr. Turing immediately)
Re: Anna Kiesenhofer: Mathematician, amateur cyclist, Olympic champion
#27"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…
No, the rules are pretty simple. The one who manages to first cross the finish line wins. Everybody knows the rules.
The problem is it is not a very simple sport and there is some game theory involved. Riding as fast as possible is not the best strategy, actually it is pretty poor one.
The better strategy comes from understanding you don't need to win by a lot, winning by 1s is the same as winning by 10 minutes. Also riding alone or at the front costs a lot more effort than riding behind somebody.
Actually, riding at the same speed at the front might be max effort and in the pack might be almost coasting.
Together, this means you may have a very valid strategy to try to preserve energy (ie. keep with the pack) and count on your better ability to sprint at the end to get ahead of competitors. That of course as long as you believe there is nobody running away.
At the extreme of effort, very small differences of effort can have very large effects on your body. If you look at it, a difference of tempo to run a 5k and 10k is very small.
The current world records for 5k is 12:35.36 and 10k is 26:11.00.
If you look at difference, 5k is 151s/km while 10k is 156s/km, just 5s or 3% slower.
And yet that minute difference lets you run twice as far.
Re: Anna Kiesenhofer: Mathematician, amateur cyclist, Olympic champion
#28"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…
I don’t think “much easier” is an exaggeration at all. It is hard to win with no help as you say. Which is why there’s a good chance that she would have been caught if the people who did have help knew there was someone they needed to catch.
That being said, good on her for sneaking away getting out in front unnoticed. It’s not always just about pure ability.
Re: Anna Kiesenhofer: Mathematician, amateur cyclist, Olympic champion
#29It might be interesting to recall that Alan Turing was an Olympics team contender for 1948~1949
Honest question: why would this be interesting in this context? (Edit: check the follow-up comments to see why I wasn't as surprised as others about Ms. Kiesenhofer being both sportswomen and active academic and therefore did not make the connection with Mr. Turing immediately)
Because he's also a Mathematician in the Olympics, similar to (but not as successful) as Mrs. Kiesenhofer.
We like when nerds are not completely 1 dimensional.
Re: Anna Kiesenhofer: Mathematician, amateur cyclist, Olympic champion
#30in germany every1 has a phd; no surprise really