Austrian Cyclist Dominated An Event So Bad That The Field Forgot All About Her And The Silver Medalist Celebrated Thinking She Won Gold
Well, here's a new one. Granted I'm not up to date on how often this happens in cycling, I'm going to assume almost never. We had the road race - quick side note, this is why I'm a sucker for the Olympics. We get so many random sports that we never watch or think about and react like we're all pros. One of my favorite things about Twitter during the Olympics since we can't share any videos. Apparently Austrian Anna Kiesenhofer was a massive underdog and the Dutch were a SuperTeam here. It didn't matter considering she won the event by over a minute - which is a dominating performance. So much so that the second place finisher thought she won the gold because she didn't see anyone in front of her. (h/t Yahoo)
Austria's Anna Kiesenhofer shocked the world on Sunday with a runaway victory in the women's cycling road race at the Tokyo Olympics. After breaking away from the peloton early in the race, Kiesenhofer finished ahead of the field by more than a minute.
That massive gap would prove to be unfortunate for Annemiek van Vleuten of the Netherlands, who crossed the finish line 1 minute and 15 second after Kiesenhofer and immediately started celebrating as if she won gold.
To be fair to Van Vleuten, she wasn't the only cyclist in the race who believed she won gold. British cyclist Elizabeth Deignan, who finished 11th, congratulated the Dutch cyclist for her win in an interview with the BBC.
Woof. Talk about a let down. Here you are thinking you are the best in the world at your sport only to find out you got your ass kicked. Do you know how dominant you have to be to have the entire field completely forget about your existence? I can't say I've ever seen that before. Doesn't matter the sport, I've never seen this before and we've seen dominating performances left and right. I mean look at this video, there's no one even remotely close.
I get wanting to celebrate and the confusion, but this just shows you better be 100% sure you won gold if you start celebrating. I don't know if they can have coaches there - they can't have radio talk or anything like that - but someone has gotta help her out. I don't care if it's a reporter or official or anyone has to tell her fast, hey you're 2nd, tone it down a bit.