Anna Kiesenhofer: Mathematician, amateur cyclist, Olympic champion • Hacker News Board

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

#91

Post by Leherenn » Sun, Jul 25, 2021, 7:47 PM UTC

lmilcin wrote: post #64

hinkley wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In professional cycling the Ride as Hard as You Can people are necessary but often don’t achieve any real rank on the team. They might not even finish a tour, either having not budgeted enough for the late stages, or being so new that they can’t understand how tired they’re gonna be later. Their claim to fame may be limited to being on the top team, it might be being on a top 5 team. If you’re lucky you team may plac…

> In professional cycling the Ride as Hard as You Can people are necessary but often don’t achieve any real rank on the team. They might not even finish a tour, either having not budgeted enough for the late stages, or being so new that they can’t understand how tired they’re gonna be later. I am not much interested in cycling, but I understand this is the dimension that is not present on Olympics. Or do they also ri…

Most countries will have a clear leader yes, especially the big ones with 4/5 riders. Sometimes they hedge their bets by having one guy "free", often in the breakaway. It apparently wasn't so much the case with the Dutch women this year though.

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

#92

Post by Tainnor » Sun, Jul 25, 2021, 7:51 PM UTC

shayankh wrote: post #30

in germany every1 has a phd; no surprise really

A PhD in mathematics is not the same thing as a ghostwritten PhD in some other disciplines that are notorious for this sort of thing.

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

#93

Post by OscarCunningham » Sun, Jul 25, 2021, 7:59 PM UTC

jamincan wrote: post #62

spodek wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All credit to her for an extremely strong ride. And a better strategy, which is a major part of competition. People commenting on her being lucky. She had a better strategy.

I mean, it worked in this case, but winning from the break, especially for an important race like this, is rare. They were definitely lucky.

If you're losing then it's a good idea to take actions that increase the variance of the possible outcomes.

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

#94

Post by rocqua » Sun, Jul 25, 2021, 8:08 PM UTC

la_fayette wrote: post #68

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…

Sorry but this is ridiculous! Everyone who participates at the olympics must be a professional athlete. Especially, if you are favorite. Observing the environment around you should be obvious?! It is not like Anna Kiesenhofer had the one ring on her finger and was invisible...

She did not earn her money with cycling. Last year, her proffesion was Mathematics teacher. She was also far from a favorite for this race.

She spent one year in a proffesional group. The commentators were saying she really dislikes riding in 'the bunch'. Which would make proffesional cycling hard. She qualified through national championships, which are open to non-proffesionals.

As for invisibility, the person who came second thought they were first. So somehow they missed this. And she wasn't the only one who didn't know there was still someone ahead.

Non of this is meant to say Kiesenhofer did not deserve this. She rode an amazing race, and earned this gold medal.

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

#95

Post by rocqua » Sun, Jul 25, 2021, 8:11 PM UTC

pjbster wrote: post #88

This isn't the first time something like this has happened: cycling aficionados will remember the tale of Robert Millar and the "stolen" 1984 Vuelta [1]. I personally love it when races are run without radios. The UCI tried to ban them in 2010 but the pro teams rebelled, claiming that they were essential for safety reasons; the number of crashes at the 2021 Tour de France would suggest that they aren't succeeding ver…

If you don't have radios, you still need to tell riders about the gaps.

Perhaps a radio channel that just tells riders the state of play without input from the teams themselves.

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

#96

Post by rocqua » Sun, Jul 25, 2021, 8:15 PM UTC

Quarrel wrote: post #4

This is incredible, but some of the headlines of "amateur wins gold versus pros" are a little misleading. She was with a pro-team, she is the current Austrian time-trial champion and had devoted herself to making this happen over the pandemic. Meanwhile the Dutch World Champion didn't know she was ahead, so didn't chase her. I love the story, but it isn't a simple amateur beating out all the pros story.

She's only an amateur in the technical sense.

It seems to me like she has the passion and drive for time trialing, not really road racing. It's hard to do that for money, and she is apparently driven and lucky enough to be able to have a job but still train like a pro.

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

#97

Post by walshemj » Sun, Jul 25, 2021, 8:21 PM UTC

rocqua wrote: post #94

la_fayette wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry but this is ridiculous! Everyone who participates at the olympics must be a professional athlete. Especially, if you are favorite. Observing the environment around you should be obvious?! It is not like Anna Kiesenhofer had the one ring on her finger and was invisible...

She did not earn her money with cycling. Last year, her proffesion was Mathematics teacher. She was also far from a favorite for this race. She spent one year in a proffesional group. The commentators were saying she really dislikes riding in 'the bunch'. Which would make proffesional cycling hard. She qualified through national championships, which are open to non-proffesionals. As for invisibility, the person who c…

And women's pro cycling pays very poorly compared to the Men.

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

#98

Post by ISL » Sun, Jul 25, 2021, 8:22 PM UTC

sharken wrote: post #73

TomK32 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh communication is so important, isn't it? There's even an old Slim Gaillard song about that I used to lindy hop to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teaxWYRH9A4 What I've read, Kiesenhofer would have preferred to race the time trial instead of the the road race, she even told that the austrian press just before the race. A breakout gives you the advantage of riding your own pace at our optimal and constant power leve…

It would be a breath of fresh air for Tour de France if they did not use radios. Another outcome could be that we would not see the same rider winning multiple years, simply due to missing radios. All in all seems like a win for viewers.

With cell phones, the crowd would suddenly have a lot of agency (and spoofing).

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

#99

Post by bijant » Sun, Jul 25, 2021, 8:23 PM UTC

The Dutch Cyclists didn’t even need a phd in PDEs, they could have gone for gold if they had been able to count to three.

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

#100

Post by rocqua » Sun, Jul 25, 2021, 8:24 PM UTC

mkurz wrote: post #55

Quarrel wrote: post #4

This is incredible, but some of the headlines of "amateur wins gold versus pros" are a little misleading. She was with a pro-team, she is the current Austrian time-trial champion and had devoted herself to making this happen over the pandemic. Meanwhile the Dutch World Champion didn't know she was ahead, so didn't chase her. I love the story, but it isn't a simple amateur beating out all the pros story.

> She was with a pro-team Only in 2017. She quit a Belgian pro-team shortly after she joined [1]. Quote from the linked article: "I noticed that professional sport is too much physical and psychological stress for me and that I prefer to only do hobby sport" > but it isn't a simple amateur beating out all the pros story. IMHO she probably is not really just an amateur, but also not a pro. I mean, she is 30, doing her…

It is definitely the mistake of the dutch riders, and the dutch team. From reports, it might also be issue with communication between the organization and the dutch team.

There were complaints about unclarity of information for the riders. If true that probably is something the organization to do better. But 'our girls' could have done better.

My read is that: being used to having communication; hubris and situational awareness mistakes; unclear signaling of gaps to the riders; and a spotty cell connection in the coach's car combined to the Dutch riders making a very bad mistake.

What would have happened without this mistake is an unkowanle what-if. My money would be on Kiesemhofer having been caught, given how quickly the gap was shrinking at the end. But that what if doesn't matter as much as the huge mistake that prevented it from materializing.