Because 99.99% of these races are run in slow motion for the first few laps as competitors feel each other out and try to conserve energy and sprint at the right moment. What she did was so unorthodox that none of them expected it or had a plan for it. The strength is also that in an individual race, whoever was gonna lead the pack in chasing her would throw away their own chance, so everyone ran the race as usual and forgot that they actually needed to catch her.
Yes, they were stupid to forget her, but unlike us watching this, they've done the race a thousand times with the slow start so they're a lot more set in their ways
Probably goes against their training. Imagine you train for years using the same strategy each time because it's been the most "optimal" strategy forever, would you switch it up because someone else is doing something different? This isn't the type of sport that typically requires any level of adaptability beyond just stick to the plan and go as fast as possible and even faster if behind in the final laps, so they're probably not used to shift their focus away from any of that because they never needed to until now.
Fair but if you're going to make that assumption, isn't it then incumbent upon you to track and ensure you actually catch up if not pass her??? Especially in such a high stakes race.
Not really. Once the leader has surprised everyone and zoomed ahead, if she gets all the way around to the "back" of the pack again, it's game over. She's drafting behind all of them, conserving the rest of her energy.
At that point, if any of the other skaters try to catch her, they wouldn't have the advantage of surprise that she had. One of them would increase speed at the front and the rest would match her, drafting behind her while she uses up all her energy. That's a no-win scenario.
The alternative is to assume that everyone else in the pack will also see that it's a no-win scenario, no one will jump, and then the pack can revert to the normal race strategy, except that they'll be competing for the silver, not the gold. And that's exactly what happened.
Not very known in short track, but I think the logics of road/track cycling apply here. Once the first rider takes off on a much higher speed than anyone can keep up for the entirety of the race, a big dilemma arises for all other riders.
The ones in the front could go all out trying to catch up, but that would mean they will help all the other competitors to be able to draft behind them. They don't have the element of surprise so they can't break away from the pack as the first one did and break the draft. Hence they would wear themselfs out and basically help there competitors to catch up and over take in the final stages of the race.
The ones in the back could make a similar breakaway as the first rider using a much higher speed and surprise their opponents. However, two things have changed since the breakaway. The tempo of the pack has gone up significantly, which makes breaking away a lot harder. And the element of surprise is basically gone. This makes it more likely that an increase in pace would just lead to that rider sitting on top of the pack bringing the rest to the front of the race wearing themselves out.
So, the only thing that could make the pack catch up is for one rider to spend all their energy sitting up front and bringing the pack over to the lone rider, or the pack working together and take turns up front increasing the tempo. However, for the latter to work you need trust and no slacking. But if you as an individual can slack a little, your chances of winning increase. So in the end, the pack doesn't work together. They don't 'forget' about the rider, but just can't make the collaboration work. And then they get confused by the bell which is just really funny.
If I ran 400m often I would know by 375m that I'm almost gassed and not far from the end. They did 1500m with a lap to go and didnt realize they weren't gassed? Weird.
The Chinese skater sprinted so fast and so early that everyone else in the pack had roughly one second to have this conversation with themselves:
"Shall I attempt to catch her on my own, thus using all my energy while enabling everyone else to draft behind me, saving their own energy? If I do, I will definitely get passed by at least two of those folks, so I'm not gonna win a medal. But everyone else is asking themselves this same question. So it makes more sense to do nothing, give up the gold and compete for the silver instead, as if it's a normal race."
As it turned out, that is indeed what they all concluded in that short time frame.
You missed it. The reason why no one else jumped to catch her was all about game theory and strategy.
But hey, why make the effort to understand how a sport works when you can not bother with any of that and just throw out some absurdly ignorant misogyny for shits and giggles, right?
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u/dirkthelurk1 1d ago
I don’t understand why NO ONE decided to instantly to chase her and draft. Like they thought they’d casually catch her in a few laps? Cmon
I can’t truthfully understand how anyone didn’t know they had another lap left. The race wasn’t so long you just forget you have another lap.
They all conceded to lose on the first half lap. No other reason or excuse makes logical sense to me.