No more photo finish controversies (hopefully) at Amstel Gold, as race organisers upgrade equipment

It may come two years too late for Tom Pidcock, but the organisers of the Amstel Gold Race – which takes place today on the hilly, winding, obstacle-heavy roads of the Limburg province of the Netherlands – have finally acted on the race’s recent spate of controversies by upgrading their finish-line set-up and equipment.

Controversies over photo-finish decisions and the veracity of the organisers’ equipment have dogged the Amstel Gold Race – one of the sport’s most prestigious one-day classics and the opening salvo of a week of hilly racing, culminating in next Sunday’s Liège–Bastogne–Liège – in recent years.

Most famously, in 2021 Tom Pidcock lost out to Wout van Aert, who the British rider had beaten just days before at Brabantse Pijl, in one of the tightest and most controversial photo-finish decisions in cycling’s modern history.

#AGR21
Who really won this battle 🤔.
Van Aert Vs Pidcock.
Amstel Golden Race 2021
Iyi VAR ni danger pic.twitter.com/ssVHvkhXXs

— Muhoza Aime Moise (@Maimemoise) April 18, 2021

That imperceptibly close call, one which seemed to contradict the images captured by the television cameras, sparked a seemingly endless debate, as well as spawning more than a few conspiracy theories, with Pidcock himself even to this day continuing to claim, albeit light-heartedly, that he is the rightful winner of the 2021 edition of Amstel.

> "I feel so bad for him!": Amstel Gold Race photo finish drama AGAIN as Benoît Cosnefroy celebrates...only to be told result on live TV

To make matters worse, last year’s race also ended in yet more controversy, as Benoît Cosnefroy was initially told that he had won the men’s race – in yet another desperate throw to the line – before the organisers had even viewed the finish-line photo.

The AG2R Citroën puncheur, naturally, celebrated wildly, only to be told minutes later that the race had, in fact, been awarded to Pidcock’s Ineos teammate Michał Kwiatkowski – with the photo finish at least providing some clarity that time around.

From euphoria…  

…To heartbreak for Cosnefroy last year (Zac Williams/SWpix.com)

Those results have now led to increased scrutiny of the race’s procedures and photo finish set-up, including its alignment with the gantry, a furore that has prompted the organisers to replace it with equipment and high-precision cameras managed by Matsport, which provided the timings for the Tour de France before 2016, and supplied by FinishLynx.

Cosnefroy’s bitter disappointment last year has also caused the organisers to address their procedures for analysing the photo finish and declaring the winner.

“All in all, it’s Murphy’s Law that hit our event,” race director Leo van Vliet told Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf earlier this week.

“But now it’s over. That is why we now work with the company who judge wins and losses in the Tour de France – because I don’t want any doubts.

“We have tightened the protocols. This is also the case with a major accident. Something unlikely must first happen before everything is then better agreed.”

Addressing the Cosnefroy debacle from 2022, Van Vliet added: “In a similar case, the jury no longer declares a winner at all, until we are 100 percent sure. And the TV stays out of the jury car for a while, so they don’t call the wrong name either.

“It’s highly unlikely that lightning will strike place, but the organisers won’t mind if it does. Somehow, I hope it will be this exciting again because we are ready for it now.”

> Lotto Dstny files complaint with UCI over blurry finish photo – and asks for proof that Caleb Ewan didn’t win

Van Vliet and his fellow organisers can take comfort in the fact that they’re not the only race that has been the subject of photo finish controversies in recent months.

In March, Lotto Dstny filed a complaint with the UCI following a rather dubious call at the GP Jean-Pierre Monseré which saw the race organisers – ten minutes after initially awarding the win to the Belgian team’s sprinter Caleb Ewan – change their mind and instead declare Intermarché-Circus-Wanty’s Gerben Thijssen the victor.

That belated decision, which came just two weeks after Australian fast man Ewan found himself on the wrong end of another impossibly tight photo finish call at the UAE Tour, was made with the help of possibly one of the blurriest finish line photos the sport has ever squinted to see, prompting Lotto Dstny to challenge the UCI to provide proof that their rider didn’t win.

Meanwhile, Ewan himself took to social media after the race, posting photos that appeared to show his front wheel pipping the Belgian’s to the line, and writing, “If anyone’s got a photo of big G clearly beating me it would actually make me feel a bit better to be honest.”

In the wake of that controversial sprint finish in Roeselare, a Belgian Cycling official argued that such a blurry finish photo “cannot be the intention” and that lessons should be learned for all race organisers.