Anna Kiesenhofer
On 25 July 2021, Anna Kiesenhofer — a 30-year-old Austrian mathematician with a PhD from Barcelona and a postdoctoral post at EPFL — attacked in the opening seconds of the Tokyo Olympic road race. Four riders went with her; the peloton let them go. With 41 kilometres left she dropped the last of them on the Kagosaka Pass and rode alone to the finish, 1:15 clear. There were no race radios; the chasing bunch had lost track of her entirely, and Annemiek van Vleuten of the Netherlands crossed the line celebrating a gold medal that no longer existed. It was Austria's first Summer Olympic gold since 2004 and its first cycling gold since 1896. Kiesenhofer had spent one season, 2017, as a professional with Lotto Soudal; by her own account it produced "lots of DNFs and burnout," and she left the peloton. She raced Tokyo with no team, no coach and no directeur sportif, having written her own training, nutrition, equipment and tactics. She had hoped for 25th place.