Austrian amateur's calculating win

Rider without a pro contract, or team-mates, outfoxes the mighty Dutch for Olympic glory as confusion reigns

- Simon Richardson

Anna Kiesenhofer delivered the biggest upset in Olympic road cycling history last weekend after holding on to win gold having spent the entire race off the front. The Austrian was the first rider to attack in the opening 500 metres and got herself into the five-rider move that immediately went clear. Then 137km later she soloed to an unthinkable victory on the Fuji Speedway circuit in Oyama, south-west of Tokyo.

Kiesenhofer hasn’t raced as a professional since 2017, and this year her only two international-level races have been the Austrian road and time trial championships (she won the latter).

Despite the lack of racing, the Cambridge maths graduate timed her race-winning move to perfection, attacking her two remaining breakaway companions just before the summit of the race’s second col, the Kagosaka pass. With 40km to go she used her time trialling ability and the long descent to maintain her momentum.

Behind her, confusion in the peloton caused by a lack of information being fed back to the riders meant the Dutch team didn’t get their act together and begin to chase in earnest until the final 10km. This last-minute effort did reel in Omer Shapira (Israel) and Anna Plichta (Poland) robbing them of silver and bronze, but by then it was clear they weren’t making up the time to bring back Kiesenhofer.

The Dutch did at least secure the silver medal with Annemiek van Vleuten. But as a final indignity on a bad day for them, she celebrated as she crossed the line before someone told her she wasn’t the winner.