One person sprinted ahead and lapped the entire group, then hung out in the rear of the pack until she won. Everyone was saving their energy and planning to sprint in the end, not realizing they were all behind the leader, who was behind them.

ai voice then just adds to the ear misery

you got a point there!

Out of sight out of mind.

Like I get that they didnt try to match her, because its unusual. In e.g. 2000m races (running) often someone takes off early but then in the long run he lacks the stamina and actually on many cases comes in last. But in this case it should have been rather obvious for the others that they got lapped and that they are not fighting for the first position here. Hard to imagine that they neither noticed it, or just forgot about it. I mean if one of them forgot okay, but the whole pack? Like the pack even did try to speed up but then gave up, they should have clearly understood . It just makes no sense xd

They had 13.5 laps to go. Everyone starts slow because you can't sprint for that long that early. They just lost track of her. (These are teens, btw.)

There is some trickery going on here, but only for the teammate who got in second place. Like you are saying, the person who got in first is pretty straightforward. They went faster than everybody else and won because of it. Others did likely lose track of her positioning by the end, but that is all straightforward. The trickery happens with the second place finisher who was in on it. The person in first place intentionally stuck with the pack because as the first person approaches their final lap there will be a noise that goes off to indicate such. By perfectly remaining with the pack but one lap ahead, the whole group thought the noise going off meant there was only one more lap for all of them, when everybody but the first place position still had two laps remaining. That means at the end of that lap you can see them all extend their feet thinking were at the finish. Only the teammate who was in on it understood everybody else had one lap left and didn't let up, and was able to pass those that were ahead of her to get in second. First place really was just so fast she was lapping people and won because of that.

it's pretty simple; The Chinese are the dominant nation in this sport and it was clear to their opponents that they would never be able to catch up with her - once you have lost the connection, the distance is too short to catch up. Plus, if they tried to catch up with her, they would risk losing the relatively safe 2nd or 3rd place, either through exhaustion or a fall... so most competitors just decided to continue driving normally as if nothing had happened and then fight for the remaining places on the podium. But here they completely forgot that the bell for the last lap was not for them, but only for the Chinese woman who was one lap ahead at the end of the field.

​@@GMR.24how do you forget someone lapped you when you saw them do it? I still don't understand lol. Like even with a lot of laps to go, that's not something you just forget in a final

I get what she did I just don't get how the hell they fell for it. Are they all blind? They literally saw her go ahead of them so how could they not know she was a lap ahead? It literally makes no sense unless no one pays attention in these races, how can you not pay attention in an Olympic final!???

@@FaintImpression no one can say for that

We're not confused about WHAT happened... We're confused about WHY it happened. Athletes competing at a high level shouldn't be easily confused about the basics, such as laps remaining in a race. There was no "trick" as far as I can see. Everybody saw her lap the pack of skaters, but they simply didn't react. We want to know WHY.

@@Zerobob26 no there’s definitely people confused about what even happened. Check the comments

That, but more importantly, she get the aerodynamic advantage of staying at the back of the pack.

kzfaq.info/get/bejne/h82cZKp6udGUeqc.htmlsi=Bqj46MXQwaFf5pv_

@@SportsFakts001 i watched that too and i still dont get it. i get what happened, but i couldnt follow what was happening.

@@jdogsful If I understood correctly, each athlete must skate a determined number of laps to finish the race. Commonly, they lose count of the number of laps, so a "last lap" signal is given, based on the first-place athlete's last lap. Athletes will speed up at the signal and try to secure the best possible place. Some athletes will use the "rabbit tactic", gaining one lap on their competitors at the beginning of the race. She did something unusual: she sped up twice, ending up with two laps on them. Then she remained behind them, "out of sight". Once they all got the sign for the "last lap", they didn't have enough time to recover the two laps she had on them.

At the start, she sprinted around so she was first, but last, so when everyone thought they had another lap to go, she had already won.

@@ITSONLYMEWATCHING i get that part, but i still cant follow whats happening at the end of the race. i dont know who is who or when they cross the line.

She did an "extra" lap after everyone thought they finished. All of the other racers- didn't actually finish the race. (Well, some did, but behind Li). They thought they had won- but they really had one more lap to go. Her teammate kept going for that final lap and came in second.

@@GMR.24 They heard the 'one lap left' bell but they still had 2 laps to go, so when they thought they 'finished' they were really one lap behind.