Kiran Mazumdar Shaw lauds scientist and Olympic gold medallist in women’s cycling Anna Kiesenhofer

Anna Kiesenhofer unexpectedly bagging the gold medal in women’s cycling at the Tokyo Olympics has earned Austria its first cycling Olympic gold since 1896.

Entrepreneur Kiran Mazumdar Shaw also joined in as people around the world congratulated Anna, who is also a scientist, as she donned a gold medalist Olympian’s identity and called her a “superwoman.”

The novice cyclist is one of the many inspiring stories that the on-going Olympic Games has been bringing into the limelight. Her victory was even dubbed as “one of the biggest shocks in Olympics history” by CNN.

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“There is always this little hope that I might win and want to win as an athlete if I am at the start line, but I also know that realistically, I am not supposed to win here. So, it was just incredible and I couldn’t believe it,” she told the media.

An illustrious career as a scientist, 30-year-old Anna is a postdoctoral fellow in mathematics at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland and is currently working on nonlinear partial differential equations in Physics.

Despite clinching gold after completing the 147-kilometre course without a professional trainer, Anna does not have any intention of making a professional career on the road. 

She took to Instagram to express her gratitude and wrote, “Thanks from the bottom of my heart to those who have been there for me over the last few months and years. You know who you are. And you know that the very essence of this achievement is not so different from any other major goal I set myself in the past.” 

At the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, sportswomen are making great strides by claiming their ground as Anna did as well as withdrawing from the global stage like American gymnast Simone Biles did, sending powerful messages of prioritising mental health.