2020...2021 Olympic Women's Road Race, Tokyo, 137 KM

[IndianCyclist]

Sad to see what happened today, not good for woman cycling actually… but the winner deserves to win, very strong performance.
10 minutes for the break was way to many for such a route… so it’s everyone else mistake.

I dont know how this is not good for cycling. An unheralded amateur wins. The Dutch powerhouse screw up. There cant be better publicity than this. This can get more amateurs interested. The other possibility would be AVV/other dutch wins. Meh. that is what has been happening for god knows how many years.
I would also say that this race is the poster child for reducing team sizes and increasing the uncertainty and the suspense.

 

[Kaptain Kool]

Olympics is the Olympics and goofy results happen. But this is a good example why race radios are needed in real races. It's pretty dumb when an event is decided by lack of information and its a deterrent to sponsors when you add too much randomness.

 

[BlueRoads]

Olympics is the Olympics and goofy results happen. But this is a good example why race radios are needed in real races. It's pretty dumb when an event is decided by lack of information and its a deterrent to sponsors when you add too much randomness.

I strongly disagree, that is basically road cycling. My only concern with banning race radios is that in our times where spectators have access to all infos all the time it could become unfair if radios are banned. But this "lack of information" is actually the natural form of bike racing, while being informed (and fed and everything) all the time by a car behind is in my eyes more a mistake in the design.

 

[MartinGT]

Maybe a bit off topic, but I didn't know that ELB is the niece of Giorgio Vazetta, who won Gold in the XC skiing relay at the 1994 Winter Olympics.

ELB did a great interview with Matt Stephens, she comes from a very sporting family.

 

[Salvarani]

Of course other teams wanted and counted on the Netherlands to chase or was of the opinion that they were the ones supposed to bring the gap down. That was their chance on winning with tiring some of the Dutch team. If they help they lose, because then it would have probably been an empty goal to score in for the Dutch.

Sometimes you gotta be willing to lose to win, if it makes sense.

And if the Dutch sacrifice a couple of their riders and brought the gap down earlier. AVV probably wins this, no problem. So who lost the most and had anything to lose? The Dutch.

The others should feel no responsibility or remorse for not helping. That was their chance on winning. Making the Dutch spend energy. Mind you, AVV would have probably won anyway. But the chances for someone else at least becomes higher in the peloton by making them do the work. Now the Dutch just refused until it was too late, so congrats to the winner!

 

[MartinGT]

I've not been on here all weekend since the race. But what struck me was the lack of Congratulations from the pro's / faves towards Kiesenhofer. Thought that was a bit poor tbh.

 

[Mayomaniac]

I've not been on here all weekend since the race. But what struck me was the lack of Congratulations from the pro's / faves towards Kiesenhofer. Thought that was a bit poor tbh.

Yeah, I only saw Cille congratulating her.

 

[yaco]

We need to understand that most of the cyclists in the RR have committed years of sweat and hurt to achieve an Olympic Medal - Of course it hurts when an 'amateur' flukes a victory with a limited preparation.

 

[Armchair cyclist]

So what if everyone had known that Kiesenhofer was out front. Given the situation with 40km left (let's charitably assume that thereafter they were only told the gap to Plichta/Shapira) and the strength of Kiesenhofer's ride, what was the likelihood of her being caught? Did the peloton have the legs, and tactics, to make up another 1'15" ?

Are we talking a change in the result, or just saving Van Vleuten face from a false celebration.

 

[Põhja Konn]

Olympics is the Olympics and goofy results happen. But this is a good example why race radios are needed in real races. It's pretty dumb when an event is decided by lack of information and its a deterrent to sponsors when you add too much randomness.

The underlined part is bit of a knee-jerk reaction. It would make some sense to question the sensibility of holding one particular race without radios, when they can use them in every other one. In fairness, the same formula applied to men too, and they had no major issues with handling a different flow of information during the race.

In no way can womens ORR used as an example of no race radios leading up to too random racing. Firstly, the teams here were smaller than required if the right balance between control and unpredictability is concerned. This was further excarberated with three major favourites being in the same team. With four-women team that left the Dutch short of domestiques when other teams were understandably reluctant to work with them.

In addition, Kiesenhofer was so strong that even in case of understanding that she's still out in front, the Dutch should probably have used at least two of their riders up for their chase to be successful. Them having so many big name leaders, I'm not sure the required cohesion as a team and willingness to sacrifice themselves for teams success was there in the first place.

So to sum it up, I think that the lack of race radios was a comfortably low hanging fruit to crab to explain the major screwjob specially the Dutch team had. The bigger reason for overt randomness of the result (at least for some people's liking) was too small size of teams which was excarberated by uneven distribution of pre-race favourites between teams and relative unfamiliarity of riders and DS's with racing without race radios.

 

[Pirazziattacks]

We need to understand that most of the cyclists in the RR have committed years of sweat and hurt to achieve an Olympic Medal - Of course it hurts when an 'amateur' flukes a victory with a limited preparation.

That's cycling, there are no guaranteed results. I can understand some of the top women who are up there in every big race being disappointed, but anyone who sees this as unfair or a fluke is a massive loser. We're not talking about immature juniors here.

 

[Volderke]

We need to understand that most of the cyclists in the RR have committed years of sweat and hurt to achieve an Olympic Medal - Of course it hurts when an 'amateur' flukes a victory with a limited preparation.

I don’t think Kiesenhofer’s preparation was limited. She prepared very thoroughly, did a lot of research regarding the potential of overheating, and she studied the course and prepared her tactics.

I would say the Dutch were very much unprepared to do anything more with regards to preparation than select 4 strong women and hope for the best. Quite amateurish.

 

[roundabout]

We need to understand that most of the cyclists in the RR have committed years of sweat and hurt to achieve an Olympic Medal - Of course it hurts when an 'amateur' flukes a victory with a limited preparation.

As long as the winner achieved their result through fair means, you do a decent thing and congratulate them however much it may have 'hurt'.

 

[Armchair cyclist]

Yeah, I only saw Cille congratulating her.

It is very easy to assume that the only thing that happened while a live TV feed was coming from where she sat post-race is the only thing that happened there. Did Kiesenhofer say that she was snubbed by everyone other than Uttrup, or indeed that anyone wilfully ignored her?

I didn't see anyone other than Rivera chat to Niewiadoma after the race: does that mean nobody did?

 

[Monte Serra]

It is very easy to assume that the only thing that happened while a live TV feed was coming from where she sat post-race is the only thing that happened there. Did Kiesenhofer say that she was snubbed by everyone other than Uttrup, or indeed that anyone wilfully ignored her?

I didn't see anyone other than Rivera chat to Niewiadoma after the race: does that mean nobody did?

No, Kiesenhofer hasn't said that she was snubbed, not by Van Vleuten at least.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1419589006375985154

View: https://mobile.twitter.com/laflammerouge16/status/1419589006375985154

 

[Kaptain Kool]

I strongly disagree, that is basically road cycling. My only concern with banning race radios is that in our times where spectators have access to all infos all the time it could become unfair if radios are banned. But this "lack of information" is actually the natural form of bike racing, while being informed (and fed and everything) all the time by a car behind is in my eyes more a mistake in the design.

Natural and informationless is fine if you want to be an amateur sport. But not OK if you want sponsors to invest millions of Euros into it.

 

[Salvarani]

From the race. It seems that maybe the organizer has some accountability in not providing proper information on the situation to the riders and the riders themselves struggling with communication amongst each other. You put those two faults together and you probably get the outcome that we got.

There are variables here that you could speculate on. Because if they get all the information on the situation. The Dutch probably starts chasing earlier and they catch everyone. AVV probably wins because she is the best and strongest rider.

Instead it looks like a major screw-up by the Dutch, because there was another rider ahead. I cant totally blame them either if they just didnt know. Going by what they thought they knew, they won the race. Mission would have been accomplished no matter what the race was like.

Human mistakes all over the place (which make it seem unprofessional) and unfortunately has casted a shadow on the whole race and the winner, who just deserves to be celebrated.

 

[Netserk]

I don’t know. Politics.

What time slot during the day? Do you want them to race after the men or in the morning? I don't think they'd get live coverage while the Tour is on.

So what if everyone had known that Kiesenhofer was out front. Given the situation with 40km left (let's charitably assume that thereafter they were only told the gap to Plichta/Shapira) and the strength of Kiesenhofer's ride, what was the likelihood of her being caught? Did the peloton have the legs, and tactics, to make up another 1'15" ?

Are we talking a change in the result, or just saving Van Vleuten face from a false celebration.

The gap came down fast in the end, but 1'15'' is a lot to make up. Maybe they would have been able to catch her in an ideal scenario, but giving how little they did to contain the break before that, I don't think they would have been able to ride all out as a team even if they knew (at that point).

 

[Salvarani]

What time slot during the day? Do you want them to race after the men or in the morning? I don't think they'd get live coverage while the Tour is on.

Huh? I dont understand your response to this, nor what I should respond to it.

The reason why they probably dont race at the same time, as someone else suggested they should do, I said probably has to do with money and politics (as I would say coverage and tv-slots falls under).

So you should ask that poster who didnt think it would be a problem.

 

[Armchair cyclist]

Kiesenhofer has been very popular over at PCS.

Rnk.	Rider	Today	Yesterday	▼▲
1	KIESENHOFER Anna	30338	180	▲30158
2	VAN VLEUTEN Annemiek	5251	923	▲4328
3	CARAPAZ Richard	2957	14439	▼11482
4	AYUSO Juan	2920	629	▲2291
5	LONGO BORGHINI Elisa	2429	723	▲1706
6	PLICHTA Anna	2354	310	▲2044
7	VAN AERT Wout	2280	8076	▼5796
8	VAN DER BREGGEN Anna	2231	1123	▲1108
9	SHAPIRA Omer	2024	322	▲1702
10	VOS Marianne	1961	872	▲1089

Huh, that's only a 168 fold increase.

Her wikipedia page view stats show a daily average of 3 in the three months up to Saturday, (and even that was skewed by 25 and 17 the two days before the race ) to 77493 yesterday. That's 4558-fold.

 

[Mayomaniac]

What time slot during the day? Do you want them to race after the men or in the morning? I don't think they'd get live coverage while the Tour is on.


The gap came down fast in the end, but 1'15'' is a lot to make up. Maybe they would have been able to catch her in an ideal scenario, but giving how little they did to contain the break before that, I don't think they would have been able to ride all out as a team even if they knew (at that point).

Yeah, looking at how little time AVV gained on her when she tried to go solo it would have been pretty hard to catch her after giving her such an advantage.
This was a bit like giving Quaade or Martin Toft Madsen (when he was still riding for a CT team) a 10min advantage.

 

[BlueRoads]

Huh, that's only a 168 fold increase.

Her wikipedia page view stats show a daily average of 3 in the three months up to Saturday, (and even that was skewed by 25 and 17 the two days before the race ) to 77493 yesterday. That's 4558-fold.

The question is who looked her up before the race... obviously not the Dutch team...

 

[Andy262]

We need to understand that most of the cyclists in the RR have committed years of sweat and hurt to achieve an Olympic Medal - Of course it hurts when an 'amateur' flukes a victory with a limited preparation.

It may have been a 'limited' preparation but reading some of the stuff out there, it had been anything but amateur. She'd put alot into her preparation.

Let's face it, that performance was impressive, however you look at it. It may have been a surprise but it was no fluke.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

So what if everyone had known that Kiesenhofer was out front. Given the situation with 40km left (let's charitably assume that thereafter they were only told the gap to Plichta/Shapira) and the strength of Kiesenhofer's ride, what was the likelihood of her being caught? Did the peloton have the legs, and tactics, to make up another 1'15" ?

Are we talking a change in the result, or just saving Van Vleuten face from a false celebration.

I would guess the issue with the inconsistent time gaps comes into play here. Van der Breggen said at one point the gap moved from 1'30 to 4'30 in the blink of an eye. While there has been some discussion of who did and who didn't know that Kiesenhofer was still away when they caught Plichta and Shapira, there hasn't been much by way of further discussion of where those riders thought Kiesenhofer was. If the time gap they had been being given was that to Plichta/Shapira, then those like Longo Borghini and Kopecky who knew that they hadn't brought back all of the break might have known that Kiesenhofer was long gone... or they might have counted up that they only caught two and know there was a third so they were aware that they weren't fighting for gold at that precise moment in time, but as they'd crossed the time gap they were given, they might have thought Kiesenhofer would come into sight any second having taken a late flyer from her break mates, which would be a not unreasonable interpretation given those circumstances. Therefore it would have been interesting to find out from riders like Elisa, not just "did you know Kiesenhofer was still out front?", but more specifically "where did you think Kiesenhofer was, relative to your group?"

Vos' explanation for why she knew Kiesenhofer was there saves face a bit if it was after she was dropped... except she was in the same group as van der Breggen, who clearly didn't know Kiesenhofer was there from her post-race interview. She was also in the same group as Deignan, who congratulated Annemiek on victory in her post-race interview. The explanation would make much more sense if it had been Vollering that had seen Anna K and known that but had already been dropped, as she was a minute behind the pre-race favourites bunch at that point. I'd assume that it was that Marianne saw her climbing the twisty bit while she was going around the hairpin at turn 6.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Huh, that's only a 168 fold increase.

Her wikipedia page view stats show a daily average of 3 in the three months up to Saturday, (and even that was skewed by 25 and 17 the two days before the race ) to 77493 yesterday. That's 4558-fold.

She reached 35871 views in total on PCS yesterday, but a 199 fold increase is obviously a lot less than 4558. But then again a lot more people visit Wiki than PCS.

The question is who looked her up before the race... obviously not the Dutch team...

My search history reveals that I looked at her Wiki page and PCS profile on the 22nd and 23rd of June, so if the Dutch are hiring, I'll be delighted to join their research department for the 2024 Olympics.