The video is very cool:
AND: From Velonews, "Anna Kiesenhofer: The mathematician who carved an unconventional path to Tokyo Olympic success":
She has a degree in mathematics from the Technical University of Vienna, a Master’s from the University of Cambridge, and a doctorate from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, which she earned for her thesis on “noncommutative integrable systems on b -symplectic manifolds”...
Her aptitude and passion for numbers and data were self-evident in a series of tweets she posted at the start of July.... “Yes, I’m an amateur, but in my life, cycling takes up a lot of space. Not money-wise, I earn my income in a normal job.... I plan the training myself. It’s not so sophisticated, I did not do any altitude training camp and I stick to the basics. I’ve stopped believing in miracles.”...
“Don’t trust authority too much. There’s always this danger. I was a victim of it myself. You’re young and you have a coach, and they say you have to do this or that. I believed people,” Kiesenhofer said Sunday when asked to give her advice to young hopefuls. “Now I’m old, 30, and I started to realize that all those people who say that they know, just don’t know. Especially those who say they know, don’t know, because those who know, will say that they don’t know. My advice is: do not necessarily believe your coach.”
What a great new sports heroine!
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7 comments:
MartyH writes:
"Kiesenhofer won for several reasons you’d never see in a pro race.
"She is not a professional or even frequent racer. The pros typically know the other racers and can mark each other. This anonymity allowed her to ride off without anyone noticing her-especially since she attacked right at the start.
"The riders did not have radios and apparently the referees were not relaying time gaps to either the breakaway or the peloton, so the peloton was riding blind. If the racers had counted how many people went in the breakaway, they would have known she was still out there and the end of the race would have been more about speed than tactics.
"It was great to watch-the house rule is to cheer for the breakaway and this time it succeeded!"
MadisonMan writes:
"This result, and the 18-yo Tunisian winning the 400-free in Men's Swimming, with the slowest seed time, are my favorite stories so far in these Olympics. A commenter at the Post made the apt point: The 2nd place cyclist felt gutted at finishing second, whereas the winner felt drained. Maybe if the silver medalist had felt drained the results would have been different."
David writes:
"I saw that move first in "American Flyers" where one of the main characters took off from the leaders, picked up the time bonuses and won the second stage of "The Hell of the West" race."
So much for professionalism! I guess they could have caught her if they'd known she was there, but she was just doing her own thing, with no one helping her, telling her what to do, and beat them all by a lot.
Here's an interview with her in which she reveals how alone she was in her training, strategizing, equipment choice, etc etc — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNrf-bE2oew
It brought tears to my eyes.
Temujin writes:
"This is why the Olympics are great. Why sports in general are great. These kind of stories is one reason people love sports. It's the unknown finish, the underdog overcoming all odds, even obscurity, or dismissive attitudes.
"I've not been watching. Not this or recent Olympics. For me they started to lose their luster when they started adding in any type of athletic competition into Olympic competition. BMX biking? Skateboarding? Beach Volleyball? (never understood how this got to be an Olympic sport other than fit women in small bikinis- which fits into your previous post). Surfing? Rock climbing? Karate?
"Couple that with the ever-present social justice preaching and overbearing spokespeople to let us know how bad we all are if we don't agree with their posturing. I suspect some, or many countries don't have to put up with that. But I get the same sense from our Olympic team that I get from many of our 'leaders'. They hate us and our country and therefore, are trying to remake it in their image.
"But I digress. More stories like the Austrian woman who won the cycling marathon. Fewer cameras on Megan Rapinoe, fewer stories and images of our athletes turning their backs on our flag would go a long way to reinvigorating television ratings again (down horribly this year)."
Narr writes:
"That Austrian gal is a throwback to the original Olympics, where IIRC all
competitors were individuals (NOT competing as Athenians or Spartans) and
there were no team sports. And it was refreshing to hear her dismissal
of professional advisors.
"That said, sport is boring. I can fully understand why it's important to the
coaches and players (and their mamas and agents) but I have never managed to sustain
any interest in playing them or watching others do so.
"You may choose not to use this, of course, being as aware as I am of the
outrage that greets any expression of disinterest in, much less disdain for,
athletics in modern America."
I'll say:
I think a lot of people are sick of the way the media overdo attention to the American athletes. A lot of us remember the old days when it was about the individual.
And let me add that I think it's more American to look at the individual than to root for individuals just because they happen to be American.
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