August 01, 2024
At the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, self-coached and on board a bike she bought herself, amateur rider Anna Kiesenhofer shocked the world by winning the women’s road race. Now riding in the WorldTour for Roland, the reigning Austrian time trial and road race champion recounts cycling’s biggest underdog story this century
When I’m referred to as an amateur winning the Olympics, it helps people identify themselves with me. “Oh, hey, I also ride a bike for fun – she’s just like me.” For selling my story, it’s quite handy. But the truth is cycling was the centre of my life in 2021, like it had been for years, and so much sacrifice had gone into it. I was training as much then as I do now, and I’d won on Mont Ventoux, been national time trial and road champion and been in the mix in the European Championships. I was only an amateur in the sense that I didn’t make money from cycling before Tokyo. What most people then learned about me is that I have a PhD in mathematics and bachelor’s degrees in physics and maths. It’s fun figuring out problems, but I’m more than just my academic achievements.
I’ve never really bought into the Olympics hype in the sense of just going there to say you’ve been. For me, the Olympics were a big target, I wanted to perform well in the same way as I’d targeted other races before – Gran Fondos and National Championships. Because it was Covid and there were few official races, to be selected for the one Austrian spot meant taking part in an internal selection race in April 2021 with the other five girls on the longlist.
A national team DS designed a course similar to Tokyo – flat and then a pretty hard climb before a flat finish – and we even had some elite men ride at the front so that we went into the climb with some fatigue. I gave myself a 70% chance of winning because I knew I had the best card to play, but I still had to cross the line first to get the spot. Thankfully, I did.
I wasn’t signed to any team and was coaching myself at that point. I’ve had coaches on and off, and I felt the best preparation for me was to use all the knowledge I had gathered and do it myself. At the beginning of 2021 I bought myself a new Scott Addict from my local bike shop – they were friendly enough to even give me a bit of a…