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

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

#111

Post by rurban » Sun, Jul 25, 2021, 9:13 PM UTC

mmdoda wrote: post #29

_Microft wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why don't you call her Dr. Kiesenhofer then? Esp. Austrians love their titles.

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

#112

Post by Dingen » Sun, Jul 25, 2021, 9:19 PM UTC

rurban wrote: post #109

Dingen wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 an…

Yeah, I don't mean to discredit her. Just saying the peloton didn't think of her as they caught up with the front runners, as they didn't really know her. Exactly for the reason you state: she didn't attend a whole lot of pro events.

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

#113

Post by j7ake » Sun, Jul 25, 2021, 9:42 PM UTC

What an amazing effort from Kiesenhofer. I imagine being alone in the front for that long would be many times more effort than staying in the peloton. Heroic effort.

I am curious how this upset compare with other upsets in previous Olympics? Has there been bigger upsets than this one?

If this were a tennis event, would this be like someone who was ranked top 50 or top 100 in the world beating Novak Djokovic to win gold?

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

#114

Post by Denvercoder9 » Sun, Jul 25, 2021, 9:43 PM UTC

jessaustin wrote: post #57

Denvercoder9 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I didn't see this race yet, and although I enjoy watching it I'm no expert on road cycling. However, ISTR that in every televised race there is a particular motorcycle that stays with the lead rider(s). If a racer thinks she's on the front and doesn't see that motorcycle around somewhere, shouldn't she reconsider her position? Also the racers who had been on the breakaway and got caught knew she was still up there, b…

There's usually motorcycles in front of the chasing groups as well, and I don't think the motorcycle for the leader is specially marked.

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

#115

Post by orthoxerox » Sun, Jul 25, 2021, 9:57 PM UTC

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…

Time trial is a better way of finding which rider is the fastest, but the race is so boring without an obvious winner.

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

#116

Post by elijaht » Sun, Jul 25, 2021, 9:59 PM UTC

I recently started watching road cycling with this years Tour de France and now the Olympics and it's pretty interesting. A lot of tactical depth and it's a perfect WFH background noise- it plays out over hours so you don't have to be watching every minute

Both mens and womens road race in the Olympics were excellent too, a lot of drama and interesting mind games

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

#117

Post by rocqua » Sun, Jul 25, 2021, 9:59 PM UTC

frereubu wrote: post #107

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.

Why do you need to tell riders about the gaps?

Because otherwise the Olympics for road cycling and actual high-level road cycling races become totally different things.

The entire game of road cycling races is based on judging these gaps. Without it, you would probably never let anyone ride off. Then races become attrition, followed by sprint.

Either that or you get a weird spotting system where people try to get gap timings to the riders through unofficial channels. Probably from the broadcast, but if delayed too much, from physical spotters with stopwatches.

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

#118

Post by rocqua » Sun, Jul 25, 2021, 10:02 PM UTC

walshemj wrote: post #97

rocqua wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Notably, 15% of men riding in the tour de France earn less than 45000 a year. That isn't a low salary, but for a proffesional athlete at the peak event, it isn't a lot either.

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

#119

Post by PuddleOfSausage » Sun, Jul 25, 2021, 10:14 PM UTC

(More related to the comments than the article) I've seen tons of takes on this since watching the end of the race this morning and, although it certainly played a part in deciding the outcome, it's a shame that more focus has seemed to be on making excuses or how the Dutch riders messed things up instead of Dr Kiesenhofer's incredible story and ride.

Kiesenhofer was on a fantastic day: van Vleuten's earlier attack from the peloton made no inroads to Kiesenhofer, assuming the time gaps shown on the TV were correct.

Watching on the TV we knew there was still a rider out front and, even if the race "ardoisier" (blackboard holder) wasn't the best, team management should have figured out a way to get that information to the chasing pack. I mean, the race finished on a motor racing circuit with pit lanes containing team helpers! It's not like it was like stage 16 of this year's Giro, where poor weather stopped race images being broadcast[1].

[1] https://cyclingtips.com/2021/05/gallery-amazing-images-from-...

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

#120

Post by dillondoyle » Sun, Jul 25, 2021, 10:25 PM UTC

tosh wrote: post #21

Interesting preparation twitter thread by Anna Kiesenhofer on body temperature https://twitter.com/AnnaKiesenhofer/status/14113592085247262...

Especially with global warming I wish they took climate into more account with deciding locations. It becomes borderline unsafe I think the US track trials were too hot if I remember right?

For training though the US climbers have a small space in their gym that is enclosed in plastic with heater humidifiers for this reason. pretty funny.

Temps + humidity - or 'condies' as the kids say - are really important to climb at the top level. Cold and a breeze is usually best.