North American riders Taylor Phinney (USA) and Guillaume Boivin (Canada) will share a unique piece of history, with the duo the first to tie for a medal in U23 road race world championship history. The pair contested Friday’s final sprint and while they weren’t quick enough to challenge Michael Matthews (Australia) for gold, they were exactly as quick as one another.
Imagery taken from Tissot’s photo finish camera reveals why the riders were too close to call, with two frames from the camera showing no difference between the positions of both riders’ front tyre. With the two frames – taken one after the other –showing the riders in identical positions organisers had no choice but to declare a rare dead-heat for third place and the final medal.
For Phinney it gives him another unique spot in the record books, as just the sixth rider to have won medals in both the Under 23 time trial and road race. Phinney claimed the gold medal in Tuesday’s time trial – his first road world championship as a U23 rider.
Phinney joins Roberto Sgambelluri (Italy), Luca Sironi (Italy), Evgeni Petrov (Russia), Thomas Dekker (The Netherlands) and Dmytro Grabovskyy (Ukraine) as the only rider to have medalled in both disciplines for the U23 category.
Tissot's photo finish camera shows why bronze was too hard to call:
The second frame of the photo finish for third place between Taylor Phinney (USA) and Guillaume Boivin (Canada).