Analyst thinks Ciccone could've beaten Evenepoel at the European Championships: 'So what exactly counts as straight?'

Evenepoel ultimately was crowned European champion, but he had to dig deep to do so. The Belgian crashed on the penultimate lap, made a comeback, then attacked on the descent and took Ciccone with him. Ciccone didn’t take the lead for a while because the pacer told him that his compatriot Christian Scaroni was right behind him.

It wasn’t until the national team coaches rode up alongside him that Ciccone made one more push toward the final kilometer. “In a way, I think it’s a shame that Ciccone didn’t win. I was watching him during the last one and a half laps and really thought: ‘Man, what are you doing, and why are you still taking the lead?’ He would have been boxed in by Evenepoel in the sprint, just like in the GP Québec,” said Zonneveld.

It turned out to be not as bad as expected, though Ciccone still fell short. Whether that one surge heading into the final kilometer made the difference remains to be seen. “Ciccone is pretty fast, but Evenepoel is incredibly fast after a classic like that. Just stay on his wheel, especially when you know Scaroni was right behind him. He didn’t take over much, but it was still too much.”

Still, Ciccone pulled off some great moves in the final stretch. “That last turn was brilliant,” observed Zonneveld, who did see an advantage in the fact that Evenepoel had blocked his rival one turn earlier. “If that had happened, Ciccone would have taken that last turn first, and Evenepoel would have easily passed him. Now he started 15 meters behind and with less speed, and yet he still managed to pull it off.”

"I would have found it pretty funny if Ciccone had become European champion," continued Zonneveld, who thinks the Italian might still have some sleepless nights over the European Championships. Not just because of the loss, but also because of the photo finish. It showed a minuscule difference in Evenepoel’s favour. But: “They settled it pretty quickly, considering how close it was. Sometimes you have to wait as long as 20 minutes.”

In recent years, photo finishes have become more common, and Zonneveld doesn’t think it’s a foolproof system. “The photo finish camera isn’t necessarily perfectly aligned with the finish line. This is sensitive to laser alignment, and that line is often marked out somewhat haphazardly by hand. Especially at a finish like this one, where the finish line was a bit curved. So what exactly counts as straight?”

"If that camera had been positioned just a little differently, Ciccone might have won. On the photo finish, as it was set up, you could really see that Evenepoel was just a pixel ahead. But Ciccone will probably wake up screaming about this one, especially when it’s such a close call and you still managed to take the lead one last time. Or what if you’d leaned your bike forward just a little bit more...’