Olympic Cyclist Celebrates Victory as She Crosses the Finish Line, Then Learns a Gold Medal Isn't Coming

Neither the gold medal winner nor the woman who celebrated when she thought she had won could quite believe the results of the women’s Olympic bicycle road race on Sunday.

Dutch rider Annemiek van Vleuten put on a massive gold medal-worthy display of victory as she crossed the finish line.

But there was one catch.

Anna Keisenhofer of Austria had been so far ahead of the rest of the pack that two minutes before van Vleuten had celebrated her finish, Keisenhofer had already had won the race,  according to Cycling News.

Van Vleuten waved her arms in triumph and embraced members of her team, only to learn the truth after someone knowing the facts poured cold water on the celebration.

“I didn’t know. I was wrong. I didn’t know,” she said.

“This is an example (of what happens) if you ride an important race like this without communication. All World Tour races have communication, and now it’s the three of us standing here and wondering who has actually won,” van Vleuten said, referring to teammates Marianne Vos and Anna van der Breggen, according to CNN.

In most races, cyclists are in radio communication with their teams, but that is not allowed in the Olympics