In this episode Lanterne Rouge and Benji Naesen recap the Women’s Olympic Road Race 2021.
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48 Comments
My wife told me we (Austria) won a Gold. I ask in what sport? She said cycling. I said: you mean Australia right? No, a girl named Anna Kiesenhofer won. Me: who? Then i checked myself and celebrated. I didnt know we even had a female starter in this race. What a monumental surprise. ÖSTERREICH hat eine Goldmedaillengewinnerin im Radfahren. Unglaublich. 🇦🇹🥇and now i can listen to my favorite cycling podcast with a victorybeer and just smile.
I disagree that race radio should be allowed for the Olympics. I think it is good for the Olympics to provide a more level playing field for amateurs and athletes around the world rather than being stacked more in favour of nations with big budgets for particular sports.
This is why olympic games are great
My calves are sore today. I'm not sure if it's from doing steep climbs on our tandem last Saturday, or an empathic reaction to watching Anna work so hard to stay out in front.
What a phenomenal win!
Kiesenhofer pulled out the old American Flyer tactic for the win!
I think the lack of radio is probably something to make bike races more interesting again. Leaving tactics in the hands of the riders themselves would make it a more whole sport IMHO.
Race radios!!! LMFAO!!! Austria rider was the best rider on the day! NED need to go back and work on their tactics.
The other teams must have feared the Dutch. A couple of full team like US and Germany could have organized at the front and made the race hard for NL and who knows maybe broken the field. Might not have put a rider in first but may have denied NL of any medal
Both Benji and Lanterne are gee’d up about this .
Greatest day ever for symplectic geometry
As others have noted – including Anna herself – the only way that Kiesenhofer was going to be competitive was to get clear of the peloton. Posters have noted that she broke immediately at 0 km; what’s even more fascinating is how she got into position to make that happen.
If you watch the neutral start, she trailed the entire field through the entire neutral start, and by trailed I mean dead last and by a few meters. In hindsight it’s actually very smart – as long as you have a plan to get to the front at the start, and she did. Trailing, she can move freely to the inside on turns, isn’t expending energy in maintaining position, and most importantly, can’t get trapped in the peloton at the start. She only moves up as the field approached the last turn leading to the bridge and the 0 km start. As the road widens she rockets up the open left side and blows past the Dutch on the start, the last time they would see her for about four hours…
Meanwhile, while the Dutch had all four riders on the front row, Vos, acting as domestique, had drifted back to the support cars to get rid of the ice vests and get more water, and van Vleuten got separated getting her vest off, and had also drifted back. The chaos and aimlessness that was to characterize the Dutch on this day was evident from the start.
Watching from the States I was stuck with the awful NBC coverage, but the replay coverage had international commentators – I don’t know who the male commentator (New Zealamder maybe?) was with Rochelle Gilmore, but during the neutral start he noted, quite prophetically, that the women’s road race is “a race like no other – it’s not always the best rider that wins, sometimes it’s the smartest, and let’s not kid ourselves, sometimes you do require just a little bit of luck.”
On this day, the smartest rider won, perhaps with just a little bit of luck…😉
Been in some fights Lanterne? Your knuckles are busted.
Women being women
racing without radio would be much more interesting, just imagine the big 3 without
Great recap, except one point. Re: 17:25, Kiesenhofer has said that she doesn't want a pro contract not because of the money, but because of the control. She wants to do her own thing, have control of herself, her training, etc. She said in an interview that a pro contract was "not for her". Agree fully on the rest of the point, just that if Kiesenhofer doesn't go pro it's not necessarily because of the money.
Wow, 107,000 views and 800 comments — that does speak for itself … great podcast on a gripping race that I cannot stop wondering about.
Post race analysis always start with the Dutch failure rather than how great Kiesenhofer was, I think this is a shame. I come from the UK and I support team GB all the way, but the first fist pumping moment in the Olympics for me was when Kiesenhofer crossed the line. I read somewhere that she said that attacking at 0km was her best chance to break away and win, as later on in the race they would not let her breakaway as well, if this was her plan, this is genius. This race was fantastic for cycling as it not only provided an inspirational winner, it also showed the many flaws in professional cycling.
1 There is no wireless device.
2 The coach wasn't watching Japanese TV.
3 The coach does not understand Japanese.
He hadn't watched the live broadcast on TV, so he couldn't figure out that there was a player ahead. The coach didn't understand Japanese, so he thought it was a gold medal and told the players at the relay point.
Look, the radio communications is just another element of the race, like a climb, weather, or altitude. Some will benefit from each element more than others ("I pray for rain cuz i train in the rain.") We know there is a mental – physical connection. You can watch videos by Navy Seals who talk about how they work to move past mental blockages to do more than what they think they can. My daughters coach (not cycling) told me she took both her daughters to a competition….it was the youngest' first time at such an elite competition and there werent really any expectations. The youngest was focused and kept asking her mom to tell her how many points she needed to medal. The mom coach first went with the tactic she used with her eldest, telling her not to worry about others, and just to do her best. Youngest demanded to know "where she was at" so mom complied and daughter ended up exeeding any expectations. She needed that mental picture of where she was at in relation to everyone else to push her. If we had stopped Annemiek after she crossed the finish line but before she knew she was second and asked her if she did her best, what would she say? "Yes i pushed my hardest" or "meh I took it easy?" I leave that to you all…MAYBE she would have acknowledged she let her gaurd down, but its also likely that she didnt recognize her blockage. Im not taking away ftom the win…..she also didnt have communications. Obviously she didnt NEED it. She pushed past and made no assumptions (even if she was sure she was ahead)…im sure she still rode like she was breaking a board with her bare hands – focusing on a point beyond the board and not focusing on the board to be broken. Hope that makes sense.
Anna did great of course she won deserved , I think this is a perfect example of how much some rely on the radio's , so they themselves pay less attention at certain moments. While in the past without the radio's riders would have to themselves . But wait this is not the first time stuff like this happens in the past in the tour de France even and the radio's helped to eliminate faults like this. The tactic wasn't that bad from the Dutch , they did get them back in the end but….. not all 3 , the mistake of not knowing Anna was still in the lead is a huge mess up .
Why didnt soigneurs passing bottles..pass the time splits..write them on the bottles? Even Lizzie Deignan in her post race interview with BBc did not know that the Austrian had won.she thought that AVV had won gold…crazy?
Bad for women's cycling-maybe, but good for the spirit of the Olympics.
Wait…didn’t they catch all but 1 of the breakaway? Couldn’t they ask the break if there was someone up the road. Surely someone would have said "I got dropped"
Excellent analysis but failing to understand that this endeveaour is a fantastic advertisement for what sport should be: passion/sacrifice beats money and (bad) tactics, what a story! .. and of course he drama on the other side … what a story again. However too much talk about the Dutch instead of talking about an epic heroic story of a true champion. I like the Dutch a lot, but for me the dutch did not loose out on the result, at the end the turned a 4th place into a silver medal – they lost out in failing the winner to congratulate. Lack of sports(wo)manship should not be tolerated, the federation should intervene on that. In other sports (tennis, fencing) it is expected that the loser congrats the winner and this is actually part of the cure ….
This only shows why OL/WC should NOT adapt to pro racing regarding radios. On the contrary – from a spectators point of view, radios should be banned in all races. But now the pro world will just whine and bribe till they get radios in OL/WC too…
I'm surprised noone compared this race to the 1992 Barcelona edition. Australian rider Kathy Watt jumped from the peleton and overtook the leading duo. Jeannie Longo didn't know Kathy was ahead when they got number 2 and 3. Favourite Longo jumped and only got a silver medal. It was hot. Information was sparse. Kathy and Annemarie had to ask the motor camera crew how big the gap was.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quPocGiPVQI Kathy Watt Olympic Road Race 1992
This is supposed to be an individual event. Therefore, race radio should be banned.
Radio should be banned , in cycle championship.
I really need to know who in the pelo knew what, and when. Overall, I have never been so riveted by a bike race from start to finish. The whole way it was “wtf are the Dutch thinking???”. Then I was just willing Kiesenhofer to hang on because she absolutely deserved it. Absolutely EPIC. A movie will be made, no doubt.
Max Verstaffen and now this trash. NL looking like entitled a holes in sport these days.
These men say it was overall not good for womens cycling and it was a joke. Are you effing kidding me. It was amazing! I think they should remove radio communication from all road racing. Anna is just Amazing. Congratulations to the Austrian people. You have a special athlete as a fellow citizen. Please be safe everyone. ✌Peace
You keep thinking the Olympic road race should be treated the same as a professional race, it is not, it is an individual race. There are some countries (not pro teams) that have multiple riders who naturally will try to work as a team but a large number of riders are the only ones from their respective countries. Just because a country such as the Netherlands has four riders eligible for the race doesn't mean they should be given an advantage over individual riders.
“If I’m to be completely honest then this [the race/what happened] was shit. It was a pretty bad representation of female cycling," Uttrup Ludwig told the Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR).
"I have no clue what the big teams are doing. It was completely nuts. I’m just sitting there alone and thinking what the hell the big teams are doing."
"Generally, female cycling is really good. And then we have an Olympics, that gets across so far to all parts of the world, where we can really show how cool it [female cycling] is. And then we make such a mess. There, I have to clutch my head.”
Despite being upset about the tactics of the bigger nations, Uttrup Ludwig congratulated Kiesenhofer for her hard-earned victory at the finish line in Tokyo.
Pride goeth before the fall…
race radio is crap. youj got 1 brain and 8 legs in a team. what fun is that? if i want to see puppets racing, i watch formula 1 🙂
imho it is the other way around: this race can be an extraordinary boost for womens cygling: people are not initerestet in a high-tech-strategy-effort. they want so see a race. it is a racing sport. and it should be. with surprising outcomes.
that is the good side of no radio…
3-2=0…for the Dutch
…easy no?
ohhh just caught up with this video today. I'm still in awe with the outcome of this race. chapeau to the Austrian rider! YOLO! Too many stars in the Dutch team and no one willing to sacrifice themselves. a bit like movistar taking 3 GC contenders to grand tours. Agreed!Ellen van Dijk was the missing piece imho to keep everyone honest. she's such a great bike rider. I love the fact the race doesn't have race radio, make the outcome so unpredictable! ☺️ I'd love to see a grand tour without race radio 😅
Anna produced more Joules of energy than anybody else. You can be unlucky riding alone but her effort was there. FULLY DESERVED!!
It's been months since the race and I want to tell you that I watched it live, early in the morning where I live. I was in suspense when Van Vleuten was closing the gap with Kiesenhofer. Will Van Vleuten close in on Kiesenhofer and win gold? Everybody knows the answer now.
This race may make the 2024 Olympics women's road race more interesting. We will see if the major riders learn anything from the 2021 Olympics women's road race. Will the Netherlands get their act together to allow one of their women, particularly Demi Vollering, to win gold? Will any other nation try to beat the Netherlands?
Race radio, you need to understand that there is a very wide gap between the top nations and developing nation and race radios is one of them .
I watched this race as it aired live and then 2 more times just to show everyone this incredible performance and it was the first time I had ever watched a road race before. All the congratulations in the world to Kiesenhofer for that performance.
A great result for Anna and for cycling.
No radios needed at all.
Respect to her.
Die haben sehr wohl gewusst,daß wer fehlt,nur hatten sie keine Chance mehr Anna einzufangen!
Except for Vollering the Dutch team members were in Olympics before, and two of them winning it, so they raced without radios before and should have planned accordingly. Maybe the two gold medalists were too greedy for more gold to play support to Van Vleuten, who didn't have a gold medal. Vollering should have more Olympics to win herself a medal, even gold.
I watched the whole thing and the tactics were pretty dismal by the Dutch and the other well monied riders, so glad Anna won, and yes, so sad she was on her own, but a great victory for her!!