Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Anna Kiesenhofer: Mathematician, amateur cyclist, Olympic champion

cyclingnews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 179 posts

Re: Anna Kiesenhofer: Mathematician, amateur cyclist, Olympic champion

#31

Post by awb »

_Microft wrote: post #26
srean wrote: post #12

It 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)

It’s super rare to be intellectually gifted and a world-class athlete. There was an NFL offensive lineman with a published mathematical paper as well, but I didn’t know about Turing’s physical talents until now.

I don’t know of any other instances of brilliant people being paid or awarded medals for their physical abilities, so I personally found it interesting.

I guess the parent comment was for those of us that were intrigued by the intersection of top-tier physical and mental abilities.

Re: Anna Kiesenhofer: Mathematician, amateur cyclist, Olympic champion

#32

Post by hourislate »

pythko wrote: post #18

Some 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…

Is it possible that an outlier, an amateur, a lone wolf, was able for a moment to draw the strength and determination that would lead to victory and not even the best in the world stood a chance.

Of is as you say....she was lucky and her victory was just a series of unfortunate circumstances for the other riders. I want to believe that there was no one that day that could beat her.

Re: Anna Kiesenhofer: Mathematician, amateur cyclist, Olympic champion

#33

Post by eCa »

bandyaboot wrote: post #28
iainmerrick wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> sneaking away getting out in front unnoticed

They knew she was in the early breakaway, they just assumed she had been caught.

Re: Anna Kiesenhofer: Mathematician, amateur cyclist, Olympic champion

#35

Post by xondono »

IceDane wrote: post #17
srean wrote: post #12

It 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.

Let’s ignore talking about mathematicians who participate in the olympics and focus on their genitalia, because that’s clearly what’s important here.

Re: Anna Kiesenhofer: Mathematician, amateur cyclist, Olympic champion

#36

Post by [deleted] »

Ostrogodsky wrote: post #25
pythko wrote: post #18

Some 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.

[deleted]

Re: Anna Kiesenhofer: Mathematician, amateur cyclist, Olympic champion

#37

Post by acdha »

Ostrogodsky wrote: post #25
pythko wrote: post #18

Some 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.

It’s not like men don’t make errors, even at this level – the entire point is pushing people to their absolute limit. The more interesting lesson for anyone not peddling an agenda is the importance of training exactly as the main event will happen – national teams usually have limited experience together and not having radios meant that the riders were guessing about details they normally know far more precisely.

Re: Anna Kiesenhofer: Mathematician, amateur cyclist, Olympic champion

#38

Post by adrian_b »

IceDane wrote: post #17
srean wrote: post #12

It 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.

Any 2 humans who are simultaneously good mathematicians and good athletes have much more in common than most pairs of women or most pairs of men have just because they have the same sex.

Re: Anna Kiesenhofer: Mathematician, amateur cyclist, Olympic champion

#39

Post by ossusermivami »

Denvercoder9 wrote: post #8
polote wrote: post #3

"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 road race at the Olympics is somewhat of an outlier in cycling. It uses national teams as opposed to commerical teams, so riders ride with unfamilar teammates, and in this case the biggest favorites were actually teammates. It also bans radios, so there's no direct communication between the coaches and the riders possible.

world/european championship has the same national structure as the olympics, the radios are present in those races, so in that way the olympics is unique.

Re: Anna Kiesenhofer: Mathematician, amateur cyclist, Olympic champion

#40

Post by pythko »

hourislate wrote: post #32
pythko wrote: post #18

Some 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…

Is it possible that an outlier, an amateur, a lone wolf, was able for a moment to draw the strength and determination that would lead to victory and not even the best in the world stood a chance. Of is as you say....she was lucky and her victory was just a series of unfortunate circumstances for the other riders. I want to believe that there was no one that day that could beat her.

It would be nice to believe, but when second place celebrates like she won says she wasn't aware of a rider up the road, it's not just not the story today. Perhaps if they had known and chased, Kiesenhofer still would have been able to hold them off, but we'll never know.

I also wouldn't call the rest of the peloton "unfortunate." They knew keeping track of the breakaway would be especially important given the lack of radio communication with a director in a team car, and they still didn't. I think Kiesenhofer deserves a ton of credit for this win; she was in the break from the very start of the race, and she was solo for over an hour, I believe. You can't do that without a lot of dedicated training and preparation. If anything, I think this is an example of "shoot your shot." You never know when things will break your way!

Part of the reason I love cycling races is that it's a combination of athletic ability and strategic thinking that you don't see in most other sports. The physics of drafting mean that a well coordinated group almost always has the speed advantage over a lone rider, but lone riders often win races because they don't have to deal with the coordination problems of a group. After 4+ hours of racing, people are trying to calculate optimal game theory decisions while at their max heart rate. It can be bonkers to watch!

Post reply on HN