PhD holder wins gold in Olympics women's cycling

Tokyo: Anna Kiesnhofer won a shocking gold in Olympics women's cycling road race on Monday, reports Agence France-Presse. Kiesenhofer, a 30-year-old national trial champion from Austria who holds a doctorate in applied maths from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, hit the gold medal, outstripping veteran Annemiek van Vleuten, who mistakenly thought she had won. Elisa Longo Borghini of Italy, who crashed in the 2016 Rio Games, won bronze after Vleuten's silver.

After the race, Kiesenhofer expressed her joy and said that she couldn't believe that she won even after crossing the line. She planned to attack at kilometre zero because she is not good at riding in the peloton, she said. She added that she is good at descent, and it was descent just before the finish.

Meanwhile, Van Vleuten, who mistook that she won the race, said that she thought so and rose her arm. She felt stupid at first for doing so and added that her teammates also didn't know who won. During the race, she had taken a fall when Denmark's Emma Joergensen veered into her path after falling. But the 2019 world road race champion quickly fell back to the track, gathering her senses and caught the peloton.

Kiesenhofer had a five-minute advantage over Van Vleuten for most of the race. Two-time world champion Anna van der Breggen, who was hitting back-to-back golds after winning in the 2016 Rio Games, couldn't outshine Kiesenhofer.