The young Austrian mathematician Anna Kiesenhofer, 30, is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland. She works on KAM theory—named after the three mathematicians who developed it, Kolmogorov, Arnold and Moser—at the interface between partial differential equations and dynamical systems. She is also interested in… sport. A keen duathlete (running and cycling) and triathlete (a duathlon with swimming added), she had to give up running after an injury. She then switched to cycling in 2014, initially as an amateur, without a coach or professional contract. Despite her sporting successes, she entered the women’s 137 km road race at the Tokyo Olympic Games as a member of an amateur team, having spent eighteen months managing her own schedule, physical training, diet and equipment: "I’m not the kind of cyclist who just pedals!" she joked.
"I sacrificed everything for this day [25 July], to finish in the top twenty-five. To win is incredible!" Her victory was all the more remarkable given that the sport’s five biggest stars were on the starting line and Anna Kiesenhofer finished more than two minutes ahead of her nearest rival.
