Giulio Ciccone contests the photo finish of his defeat against Remco Evenepoel at the European Cycling Championship

It was one of the closest finishes in cycling history. On Sunday, Remco Evenepoel snatched the European road title by beating Giulio Ciccone in the photo finish. The Italian was beaten on the line by 0.00028 seconds. Yes, you read that correctly. Dust that hurt him extremely.

The day after this terrible disillusionment, the Transalpine still had not digested a message published on social networks. “It’s difficult to put my emotions in order,” admits the runner who immediately wants to defuse any controversy by congratulating the new European champion. “Remco was the strongest yesterday. He ran as a champion, he knew how to decipher and manage a complex race and delivered an extraordinary performance. We, as Italy, have done everything we can to counter it. The esteem I have for him is immense and has never been called into question.”

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Ciccone is a good player but the bitterness is not about to leave his head. “I have reviewed the available images hundreds of times and, in the sequences where the finish line is visible, I continue to observe a dynamic that I cannot reconcile with this verdict,” he adds before expressing doubt about the accuracy of the result as well as the photographic device. What if it hadn't been placed exactly where it was supposed to be?

“I ask to see the photo finish at the real finish line”

“I would like to be able to see, without any possible doubt, the passage of our two wheels at the precise place where, according to the regulations, the finish is determined. Because if a European title is decided at 2.8 thousandths of a second, I think it is legitimate to ask that this precise passage be shown with the same precision as that with which the result was determined. I am not asking that a television image replace the photo finish,” he explains before adding: “I am asking for a very simple thing: to see the photo finish at the real finish line. If this image confirms the verdict, there will be nothing else to add. But until this correspondence is shown to me, there remains a question for me to which I have not yet received an answer. Questions which will remain unanswered for the Italian, the result having been definitively validated by the UCI.