Australian cycling has suffered another difficult day with our women failing to challenge the leaders in a gruelling road race to Mt Fuji.
Austrian Anna Kiesenhofer crossed the line first after a gruelling 147km race before collapsing onto the road whaling with happiness.
Tiffany Cromwell was the first Australian to cross the line in 26th, 2.56 minutes off the leader.
Teammate Sarah Gigante finished 8.23 minutes behind Keisenhoder in 40th while Grace Brown came home in 47th – Amanda Spratt is listed as DNF.
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Keisenhofer, on Olympic debut, attacked early in the 147km race and finished 1.15 minutes ahead of race favourite Annemiek van Vleuten.
Keisenhofer hasn’t raced for a professional team since 2017.
In heartbreaking scenes, a fist-pumping and cheering van Vleuten crossed the line in second thinking she had won gold.
The Dutch rider was visibly devastated after being informed by her team she had won silver.
Channel 7 commentator and four-time Olympian Anna Meares said it was a heartbreaking situation and questioned why the Dutch team had not done the maths and informed van Vleuten she was in second place.
“I didn’t know. I was wrong. I didn’t know,” van Vleuten later confirmed.
Her teammate Anna van der Breggen, the 2016 gold medallist, told Dutch outlet De Telegraaf: “This is actually the only race where we ride without communication, without earphones.
“We got some riders back and we thought we were going for the win. But that was not the case. You should actually start counting how many come back.
“It was confusing in several ways. We can go to the squad car for the information and we will. But in the final you don’t do that anymore.”
Sky’s Ben Ransom tweeted. “When the peleton swept up the remaining two riders from the breakaway they didn’t realise Kiesenhofer was further up the road.
“That’s a pretty big fail at this level.”
The confusion could reignite debate about the banning of race radios for riders at Olympic Games.
The tough result for the Australian women comes after medal hopeful Richie Porte failed to fire in Saturday’s 244km road race from Tokyo to the foothill of Mt Fuji.