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Annemiek van Vleuten celebrated gold - which she had not won at all
Photo: Tim de Waele / Getty Images
When Annemiek van Vleuten crossed the finish line of the Olympic road bike race after 137 kilometers, she straightened up and cheered for the victory.
But she hadn't won the race at all.
The Austrian Anne Kiesenhofer had reached the finish before her.
Van Vleuten only found out about this when she got off her bike.
At the finish, van Vleuten said she thought she was the first.
On TV you could see how the Dutch woman went to supervisor Ruud Zijlmans.
"Oh Ruud, I was completely wrong," she said: "I didn't notice it at all."
The entire top group apparently overlooked runaway
Van Vleuten broke out of the peloton a few kilometers before the final at Fuji Speedway.
But even her colleagues in the large group had apparently not noticed that there was another runaway alone at the top.
After a few kilometers, the winner Kiesenhofer with Anna Plichta from Poland and Omar Shapira from Israel pulled away from the peloton and at times gained a lead of more than ten minutes.
The Austrian later separated from her companions.
When the top riders in the peloton caught up with Plichta and Shapira a few kilometers from the finish, they thought they had reached all the breakaway women again.
"I didn't know there was another driver in front," said the Dutch Anna van der Breggen later.
“We caught up with the other women and thought we'd be racing for the win, but in the end it wasn't like that.
It's a shame. ”At the finish line, Brit Lizzie Deignan also said she thought Van Vleuten had won.
No radio allowed
The confusion apparently arose from the fact that in the Olympic race - unlike usual - no radio may be used. This means that the racing drivers are not in constant contact with their team bosses, who could otherwise give them the gap times and group sizes. Actually, the drivers are informed about the time intervals with signs from accompanying motorcycles or in direct conversation from the team cars. Apparently that didn't work on the last few kilometers from Tokyo.
Van Vleuten did not mention their false cheers for the time being.
"I'm very proud of our team and proud of a medal," she said.
Her teammate van der Breggen suspected a bit of trouble with van Vleuten.
"It's a nice silver medal for Annemiek and I think she'll be happy about it, but she's also a little bit angry," said van der Breggen.
Due to the mistake of the clearly favored Dutch women, outsider Kiesenhofer celebrated a sensational victory.
For the 30-year-old mathematician, it is the greatest success of her career to date.
ptz
