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Anna Kiesenhofer: Mathematician, amateur cyclist, Olympic champion

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

#101

Post by croes »

spodek wrote: post #52
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 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.

The others had no strategy because they didn't know she were upfront.

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

#102

Post by rocqua »

dmix wrote: post #2

I’m curious how much the extra year has helped some athletes who wouldn’t have won or might not have won until 2024. Or given a few the extra time to show they can compete. For ex: an 18yr old Tunisian was a big upset for gold at 400m swimming. https://ftw.usatoday.com/lists/olympics-swimming-ahmed-hafna... https://youtu.be/nkkn9qEnPbE Not to downplay any of their abilities or achievements.

The extra year was also a year with less competition. That probably allowed some people to train up without being noticed.

Normally it would have been noticed how much they improved in the past year in competition. Without competition, you don't know how people progressed the last year.

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

#103

Post by rocqua »

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…

Consider what happened in mens racing.

When there is someone ahead, you also get hesitation. No one wants to expend the effort to catch them. Everyone hopes that someone else will put in that effort. It's a classic game theoretical 'tragedy of the commons'.

The same could have happened here. The dutch riders were all riding for themselves. The other riders would probably have looked to the favorites to close the gap.

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

#104

Post by mijamo »

rocqua wrote: post #95
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.

Before radio you had a moto putting the latest gap to display in front of the peloton. This is very simple and would not cause trouble. Note that they do not have that for the Olympic games for some reason.

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

#105

Post by rocqua »

lmilcin wrote: post #27
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…

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…

And yet, there are quite a few solo wins. I think somewhere between 10 and 25 percent of races get won solo?

The advantage of the solo strategy is that everyone behind you is trying to put in less effort than the others behind you. So they can get stuck in a game theoretical tragedy of the commons.

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

#106

Post by frereubu »

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…

> I personally love it when races are run without radios

I agree wholeheartedly.

It levels the playing field in a way that means money can't interfere as much. Some people make a break off the front? You have to remember how many people went and how good they are. You want to make sure they don't get too far away? Chase them.

Cycling fans (of which I am one) make a lot of noise about how they enjoy the strategy involved, but there are different kinds of strategy. There's nothing I dislike more than a few people making a breakaway and the peloton sauntering along, knowing that they'll be able to catch the break within X kilometres of the finish if they make Y effort at Z kilometres out because they know exactly where the breakaway is. People wax lyrical about heroic individual deeds and head-to-head competition of the past. You want more of that? Ban radios.

The whole safety argument is bunk from what I've read of it - the amount of cameras and personnel on the course is more than enough to catch any issues.

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

#107

Post by frereubu »

rocqua wrote: post #95
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.

Why do you need to tell riders about the gaps?

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

#108

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

TomK32 wrote: post #70
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...

Ahhh, no. No! NO! The Olympics as envisioned by Coubertin didn't allow professionals for a very long time, A VERY LONG TIME. For boxers this year is actually the first Olympics that do accept professionals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Games#Amateurism_and_p...

Curiously, every single soviet sports athlete who ever competed on any international event was considered an amateur, while in fact being a full time professional devoted to his sport.

Usually they were officially 'working' at some factory, but were members of a sports club and received a substantial stipend, never doing any work but training and competing. This practice still lives in Russia. The income of any Olympics team russian athlete is estimated to be no less than 5-7k USD, generally coming in the form of several grants and stipends.

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

#109

Post by rurban »

Dingen wrote: post #84
la_fayette wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok so you want to explain to me that when she was breaking out from the group at the beginning she was invisible?

As you can also read in the linked article, she broke away with some others, as is usual in cycling. After a while the peloton caught up with the breakaways, thinking they're now racing for the lead. But they didn't realise Anna Kiesenhofer wasn't among them, as she is a virtually unknown amateur, so nobody missed her.

Excuse us, she never was an virtually unknown amateur. 2017 she got a professional contract from a Belgian team, but refused to cycle on their "stupid" rules. She rather went by her own rules, without a team and didn't need the money. 2018 she was 5th in the European time trials. She constantly rode, but not so much on professional UCI events, but also on many amateur marathon events. Which she thought were harder and better. She was official Austrian champion afterall.

The peloton just missed her, due to complete lack of communication amongst the disfunctional leading dutch team. There were many dutch and other coaches on the street with cellphones, but they didn't try to catch her, so she was lucky. A properly organized peloton would have caught her easily. You could see with your own eyes how disorganized the peloton was. Extremely interesting case for social studies.

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

#110

Post by rurban »

mijamo wrote: post #104
rocqua wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Before radio you had a moto putting the latest gap to display in front of the peloton. This is very simple and would not cause trouble. Note that they do not have that for the Olympic games for some reason.

Wrong. Anna was constantly informed by the moto of her lead. We will have to hear from others, like Longo or Brennauer if there were informed or not. But I'm pretty sure they were.
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