Photo finishes are not a rare thing in cycling – winners are decided using finish-line technology instead of the naked eye in multiple races every year – but they’re not always as controversial as they have been this week.

Usually, a finish that seems close often isn’t so close when we see the official photo finish, an image produced by a high-speed camera that is positioned precisely at the line drawn on the road.

Rather than a single open-and-close of an aperture like a normal photo, the finish line captures a single slice of the 4cm finish line tens of thousands of times per second, then renders each millisecond of time horizontally.

Because the image is a reflection of the rider’s position in time, rather than in space like a normal photo or TV still, the technology can clearly emphasise really small margins.

However, when the margins are absolutely tiny, sometimes even the finish line scan is unconvincing to some, or riders can question things about the calibration and set-up of the finish. Typically, there are two finish line cameras that the jury can consult in the event of a close finish.

With the cameras capturing slices of the riders as they cross the finish line, these photos often don’t even show the finish line as the riders see it, so they certainly are vulnerable to questioning, even once the race jury has decided a winner.

That’s what happened this week, when Giulio Ciccone called into question the accuracy and transparency of the photo finish at the end of the European Championships, where he was declared the runner-up behind Remco Evenepoel by less than four millimetres.

Despite the UEC providing not one but two photo finishes captured by the finish-line scanners, the nature of the technology means that the ‘finish line’ is not visible in either image because the whole image is just slices of the finish line.

Ciccone said he struggled to reconcile this result with photos that do show the finish line – and, in his eyes, his front wheel crossing it first.

So whilst the vast majority of photo finishes are decided without a hitch, what happens in the rare case where things aren’t straightforward? Are the results ever overturned on closer inspection? Can two winners be awarded? And what if it truly is a dead heat?

We looked back through the archives to answer those questions.

The closest photo finishes in recent memory

There are numerous examples of photo finishes every season, but only a few that make it into the category of feeling truly almost too close to call. The millimetre difference between Evenepoel and Ciccone in Slovenia at the weekend certainly makes it onto that list.

This season alone, a tiny margin separated Jensen Plowright and Wout van Aert on a stage of the Tour of Denmark, with the Belgian awarded the win after close inspection of the photo.

In 2023, Caleb Ewan tweeted that “I kinda think I won” after his win at the GP Monsere was overturned and given to Gerben Thijssen. Lotto Dstny filed an appeal at the time, but the result stood.

Going back further, Edvald Boasson Hagen narrowly losing to Marcel Kittel on a stage of the Tour de France seemed so close that the UCI might have to activate some long-retired dead heat protocol.

A tight finish at Amstel Gold Race in 2021 sparked similar controversy to what we’re seeing with the Europeans. Mark Cavendish’s win over Andre Greipel on stage 3 of the 2016 Tour de France was also exceptionally close and hard to call.

All of those examples saw margins of around 6mm – the gap between Evenepoel and Ciccone is estimated to be about half that.

Demi Vollering seems to have been involved in more photo finishes than we can count, against Puck Pieterse at the Tour de France Femmes and Marlen Reusser at Dwars door Vlaanderen to name a couple.

And of course there’s the iconic image of three riders all lunging for the line at the 2017 Milan-San Remo, though the actual winning margin wasn’t as tiny as the dramatic image led us to believe.

So ultra-tight photo finishes, especially ones where the margin is smaller than a centimetre, are still fairly rare in cycling history, but they certainly do happen, and sometimes the outcomes aren’t straightforward.

Two winners in Croatia – Umag Classic 2026

Whilst the finish line technology can usually split the riders and decide a winner, even if it’s by one or two millimetres, there have been occasions where it’s simply impossible to decide a winner.

In theory, there’s a slightly novel way to award the victory – more on that below – but very occasionally the organisers will just go for the obvious solution: declare two winners.

This is obviously a highly rare thing it sport, but it happened as recently as this spring in cycling, when the Umag Classic declared the race a tie, with Dušan Rajović and Adam Bradáč sharing the victory after lengthy studying of the photo finish couldn’t determine a winner.

They were both officially declared the winner, both earning the UCI points of a winner, and no second place was awarded.

This outcome is remarkably rare, though a similar thing did happen at the World Championships in 2010, albeit not for the win.

In the men’s U23 road race, the finish line photo couldn’t distinguish between Taylor Phinney and Guillaume Boivin for third place, so the pair shared the bronze medal and both stood on the podium.

Unfortunately, they literally did have to share the bronze medal: there wasn’t a spare one knocking around, apparently, so the podium photos show them amusingly both grasping onto the medal.

The UCI rules outline for this provision of sharing of the top three placings at Olympic and World Championships, though they are remarkably unclear about what should be done in the event of a dead heat in any other race.

Kilometre-long sprint tie-breakers have been used before, though this is not officially outlined in the UCI rules anymore.

Yes, results can be overturned – Clásica de Almería 2026

The reason Giulio Ciccone might have held out some hope that his after-the-fact appeal might have had a positive outcome is that late changes are not unheard of. Results certainly can be overturned well after a race has taken place, as happened this year, a whopping nine days after the Clásica de Almería. That’s a long time spent studying the finish line photo.

In this case, it wasn’t for the victory, as Biniam Girmay had secured that by an undoubted margin, but for third place. Matteo Moschetti was originally declared the third-place finisher, but nine days later, Dylan Groenewegen was upgraded to third.

Changing the results outside of the winner so long after may seem unnecessary, but UCI points are up for grabs and teams and riders do take results like third extremely seriously. It does beg the question of how many lower results are awarded without such scrutiny, though.

The one Tom Pidcock still doesn’t agree with – Amstel Gold Race 2021

Just because a result goes one way officially doesn’t mean riders always agree with it morally. Just ask Tom Pidcock. He very, very narrowly lost out on an Amstel Gold Race win in 2021 after Wout van Aert was declared the winner by a margin of around six millimetres, later asking “But where is the finish line?” and then making reference to a “mis-placed photo finish” – though he later deleted the latter line from his social media.

When he finally did win Amstel Gold in 2024, he joked that “I was going to say it’s great to win for the second time but that might create some controversy” which, while in jest to a degree, does probably show that at least a small part of him still thinks he has a claim to being the ‘real’ winner in 2021. Even with all the technology we have now, photo finishes still can’t convince everyone.

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