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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 o

by pythko 5y ago

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 interest in pulling the group to catch the break, since they would just get beat by one or more of the Dutch riders, and the Dutch riders didn't seem to have a clear plan on how to control the race and who would sacrifice their chances and work on the front for the rest of the team. As others have said, there were no radios allowed for riders in the race, so all information about the breakaway came from the race director's car trailing the peloton. This was a well known fact about the race coming in, and it's the same way that the annual World Championship race is run. It's normal for riders to drop back to the team car to get information about the break, and the lead moto for a group of cyclists will occasionally show time gaps on a whiteboard. At least one of the Dutch riders claimed to have known about the lone rider off the front [1], but somehow that information didn't make it to the rest of the team. It seems that most of the peloton didn't know (or didn't care) how many riders were up the road, and the Dutch team failed to communicate amongst themselves and establish a plan. All that leads to Kiesenhofer's solo move working out. All credit to her for an extremely strong ride. [1]https://netherlandsnewslive.com/miscommunication-and-underestimation-vos-knew-that-kiesenhofer-was-driving-ahead-van-der-breggen-did-not-olympics/205489/ https://netherlandsnewslive.com/miscommunication-and-underes...

Ostrogodsky 5y ago
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 5y ago
  [deleted]
- acdha 5y ago
  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.
  - Ostrogodsky 5y ago
    It is obvious you know nothing about cycling. No peloton worth its salt will let a breakaway rider to march all the way long to gold totally unopposed and even worst, without being aware of it. This does not happen even at amateur or very young categories. To the people downvoting me, you cannot wish reality away. But by all means continue living in your fantasy world.
    - acdha 5y ago
      Totally unopposed, except for the part where they caught 2 of the 3 riders? Nobody is arguing that it wasn’t an error but that happens regularly — everyone is making strategic and tactical decisions while riding at a high fraction of their maximum heart rate, and there was clearly a communications breakdown based on the claim that Van Vleuten and Van der Breggen had been told that Plichta was the last. Mistakes under pressure are not gender-specific.
      - tlear 5y ago
        The fuck up was not riders most likely but DS. Someone did not bother to look at the damn TV and count people in the break and who they were.. someone did not communicate this absolutely crucial info to whoever was the Dutch road captain. Did they not have a system of when to go to the DS car?? I mean you get food and water there lol How? It is a fuckup of astronomical proportions. Break wins all the time but I can’t think of a single race that I seen where Peloton did not realize that there was someone up the road. They had A LOT of time to catch her, they could easily do it. Yet they blew it
hourislate 5y ago
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.
- pythko 5y ago
  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!
  - hinkley 5y ago
    If you can manage to pull away when the front of the pack is dominated by people with no chance, then it can be hard to catch. Part of the chess match in cycling is keeping your friends close but your enemies closer. If you can catch a draft off of the person making a break, you burn far less energy than they do. If you’re trying to reel them in then you’ve won. Otherwise if you can’t beat em, join em. This is why relative unknowns often break away. Especially as a professional. Nobody was watching Pedro Noname, but now the sponsors and recruiters know his name. Even if he doesn’t win, he’s gotten a good story and better prospects. In this case it sounds like communication was bad and so if you didn’t see her break away then some people didn’t know she was gone. Or vastly underestimated her.
antattack 5y ago
Sounds similar to Emma Coburn's win in steeplechase in 2014[1] [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_riHHyAIvk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_riHHyAIvk
- GavinMcG 5y ago
  (Coburn, rather)
- ubermonkey 5y ago
  Wow, that's really something to see. Was there ever any discussion of what the rest of the pack was thinking? Did they think Coburn was going to be unable to keep the pace and they'd real her in, or what?
spodek 5y ago
> 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.
- TomK32 5y ago
  Breaks are rarely a winning strategy (on mountains they are, but those are a pure display of strength and will-power). Granted she is a mathematician and might be literate in road racing strategy but I'm sure a lot of that strategy is down to experience which she doesn't have.
  - throw_nbvc1234 5y ago
    https://youtu.be/mccKzTdfXts https://youtu.be/mccKzTdfXts But when they are it's amazing to watch. Completely different circumstances though.
  - peterbonney 5y ago
    When you’re extremely unlikely to win by conventional means then a high variance strategy is the best way to maximize your chances of winning. Sure, if you play this race out 50 times maybe she only wins 1 time by breaking away and hoping other riders flub up their response. But what were her odds of winning by staying with the peloton? 1/100? 1/200? As you said, she’s a mathematician - she knew exactly what she was doing.
  - gameswithgo 5y ago
    An early break is often very unlikely to get you a win and also the best chance you have for a win, at the same time.
- jamincan 5y ago
  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.
  - 5y ago
localhost 5y ago
If you’re interested in learning more, the Lanterne Rouge podcast has an excellent recap of today’s race: https://youtu.be/uKXX_3GKZWE https://youtu.be/uKXX_3GKZWE
la_fayette 5y ago
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...
- TomK32 5y ago
  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_professionalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Games#Amateurism_and_p...
  - la_fayette 5y ago
    This sounds rather idealistic and doesn't represent the reality, particularly for this female cycling race! The top competitors of Anna Kiesenhofer had professional contracts!
    - adenadel 5y ago
      Yes, but this is a huge part of the history of the Olympics. The Dream Team in 1992, athletes who worked for their governments (and just trained full-time) in the 70s, athletes living an impoverished life for years while chasing their Olympic dreams (see Steve Prefontaine working as a bartender).
  - Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
    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.
TomK32 5y ago
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 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 level; something a you can't in a breakout group where the the lead does cycle and goes from hundrets watts to almost zero and back again. I guess it's partly due to her not being a professional (anymore), thus not having to deal with team trainings and training mostly on her own? Not sure on that.
- sharken 5y ago
  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.
  - caycep 5y ago
    Totally, and way more fun to watch and even ride in too. I feel like pro cycling is way too cold and clinical these days.
  - TomK32 5y ago
    More time trials, that's what does mix up the Tour de France. I mean who needs a radio on a time trial anyways :-D
  - ISL 5y ago
    With cell phones, the crowd would suddenly have a lot of agency (and spoofing).
davidw 5y ago
This is part of what makes road racing so much fun to watch. You need to be strong to win, but it's not just a pure contest of who can put out the most watts per kilogram. Tactics - and some luck - play a factor too.
- LeifCarrotson 5y ago
  Tactics are a measure of who knows at what time to put out how many watts per kilo. What happens in road racing is politics. Domestiques grouping up at a leisurely pace to finish a climb stage just under the time limit, celebrities holding the team car by a sticky water bottle to catch back up to the group that dropped them, taking it easy for the first part of the race until a race leader says "let's go", and not attacking while someone important stops to pee, when their extra-efficient, extra-fragile tires puncture, or they get tired and downshift at a bad time and drop a chain or something. I understand that being 1% faster in a sport where your opponent can save 33% of his energy by drafting doesn't make a win a sure thing. But cyclists have spent a century drafting ever more unusual unwritten rules and it's become more about the politics than the pedaling.
  - TomVDB 5y ago
    IMO the politics and team tactics/antics are part of the fun. It’d be boring real quick if they’d make it 21 time trials…
varjag 5y ago
Victory has man fathers (or in this case mothers), but defeat is an orphan.

by pythko 5y ago

Ostrogodsky 5y ago

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 5y ago
[deleted]
acdha 5y ago
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.
- Ostrogodsky 5y ago
  It is obvious you know nothing about cycling. No peloton worth its salt will let a breakaway rider to march all the way long to gold totally unopposed and even worst, without being aware of it. This does not happen even at amateur or very young categories. To the people downvoting me, you cannot wish reality away. But by all means continue living in your fantasy world.
  - acdha 5y ago
    Totally unopposed, except for the part where they caught 2 of the 3 riders? Nobody is arguing that it wasn’t an error but that happens regularly — everyone is making strategic and tactical decisions while riding at a high fraction of their maximum heart rate, and there was clearly a communications breakdown based on the claim that Van Vleuten and Van der Breggen had been told that Plichta was the last. Mistakes under pressure are not gender-specific.
    - tlear 5y ago
      The fuck up was not riders most likely but DS. Someone did not bother to look at the damn TV and count people in the break and who they were.. someone did not communicate this absolutely crucial info to whoever was the Dutch road captain. Did they not have a system of when to go to the DS car?? I mean you get food and water there lol How? It is a fuckup of astronomical proportions. Break wins all the time but I can’t think of a single race that I seen where Peloton did not realize that there was someone up the road. They had A LOT of time to catch her, they could easily do it. Yet they blew it

hourislate 5y ago

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.

pythko 5y ago
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!
- hinkley 5y ago
  If you can manage to pull away when the front of the pack is dominated by people with no chance, then it can be hard to catch. Part of the chess match in cycling is keeping your friends close but your enemies closer. If you can catch a draft off of the person making a break, you burn far less energy than they do. If you’re trying to reel them in then you’ve won. Otherwise if you can’t beat em, join em. This is why relative unknowns often break away. Especially as a professional. Nobody was watching Pedro Noname, but now the sponsors and recruiters know his name. Even if he doesn’t win, he’s gotten a good story and better prospects. In this case it sounds like communication was bad and so if you didn’t see her break away then some people didn’t know she was gone. Or vastly underestimated her.

antattack 5y ago

Sounds similar to Emma Coburn's win in steeplechase in 2014[1] [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_riHHyAIvk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_riHHyAIvk

GavinMcG 5y ago
(Coburn, rather)
ubermonkey 5y ago
Wow, that's really something to see. Was there ever any discussion of what the rest of the pack was thinking? Did they think Coburn was going to be unable to keep the pace and they'd real her in, or what?

spodek 5y ago

> 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.

TomK32 5y ago
Breaks are rarely a winning strategy (on mountains they are, but those are a pure display of strength and will-power). Granted she is a mathematician and might be literate in road racing strategy but I'm sure a lot of that strategy is down to experience which she doesn't have.
- throw_nbvc1234 5y ago
  https://youtu.be/mccKzTdfXts https://youtu.be/mccKzTdfXts But when they are it's amazing to watch. Completely different circumstances though.
- peterbonney 5y ago
  When you’re extremely unlikely to win by conventional means then a high variance strategy is the best way to maximize your chances of winning. Sure, if you play this race out 50 times maybe she only wins 1 time by breaking away and hoping other riders flub up their response. But what were her odds of winning by staying with the peloton? 1/100? 1/200? As you said, she’s a mathematician - she knew exactly what she was doing.
- gameswithgo 5y ago
  An early break is often very unlikely to get you a win and also the best chance you have for a win, at the same time.
jamincan 5y ago
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.
- 5y ago

localhost 5y ago

If you’re interested in learning more, the Lanterne Rouge podcast has an excellent recap of today’s race: https://youtu.be/uKXX_3GKZWE https://youtu.be/uKXX_3GKZWE

la_fayette 5y ago

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...

TomK32 5y ago
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_professionalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Games#Amateurism_and_p...
- la_fayette 5y ago
  This sounds rather idealistic and doesn't represent the reality, particularly for this female cycling race! The top competitors of Anna Kiesenhofer had professional contracts!
  - adenadel 5y ago
    Yes, but this is a huge part of the history of the Olympics. The Dream Team in 1992, athletes who worked for their governments (and just trained full-time) in the 70s, athletes living an impoverished life for years while chasing their Olympic dreams (see Steve Prefontaine working as a bartender).
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
  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.

TomK32 5y ago

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 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 level; something a you can't in a breakout group where the the lead does cycle and goes from hundrets watts to almost zero and back again. I guess it's partly due to her not being a professional (anymore), thus not having to deal with team trainings and training mostly on her own? Not sure on that.

sharken 5y ago
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.
- caycep 5y ago
  Totally, and way more fun to watch and even ride in too. I feel like pro cycling is way too cold and clinical these days.
- TomK32 5y ago
  More time trials, that's what does mix up the Tour de France. I mean who needs a radio on a time trial anyways :-D
- ISL 5y ago
  With cell phones, the crowd would suddenly have a lot of agency (and spoofing).

davidw 5y ago

This is part of what makes road racing so much fun to watch. You need to be strong to win, but it's not just a pure contest of who can put out the most watts per kilogram. Tactics - and some luck - play a factor too.

LeifCarrotson 5y ago
Tactics are a measure of who knows at what time to put out how many watts per kilo. What happens in road racing is politics. Domestiques grouping up at a leisurely pace to finish a climb stage just under the time limit, celebrities holding the team car by a sticky water bottle to catch back up to the group that dropped them, taking it easy for the first part of the race until a race leader says "let's go", and not attacking while someone important stops to pee, when their extra-efficient, extra-fragile tires puncture, or they get tired and downshift at a bad time and drop a chain or something. I understand that being 1% faster in a sport where your opponent can save 33% of his energy by drafting doesn't make a win a sure thing. But cyclists have spent a century drafting ever more unusual unwritten rules and it's become more about the politics than the pedaling.
- TomVDB 5y ago
  IMO the politics and team tactics/antics are part of the fun. It’d be boring real quick if they’d make it 21 time trials…

varjag 5y ago

Victory has man fathers (or in this case mothers), but defeat is an orphan.