There are photo finishes and then there is this.
After five hours of hard fought cycling in the summer heat of France, the finish came down to literally the final inches where German Marcel Kittel and Norwegian Edvald Boasson Hagen sprinted to a virtual dead heat that was so close, neither person was confident they had won.
???WOOOOW@marcelkittel vs @EBHagen#TDF2017 pic.twitter.com/2DckabIJU6
— Le Tour de France (@LeTour) July 7, 2017
Even the replays and the video show that it looked like a literal tie and I don’t think anyone would have been upset to have co-winners. But leave it to the Tour de France race organizers to refuse to have a tie and went microscopic to see who really won. They determined that Kittel beat Boasson Hagen by three ten-thousandths of a second or .0003. That translates to a winning margin of less than an inch. Pretty close after racing for 133 miles.
Many felt that Boasson Hagen was screwed over because he had the lead up until the final inches and it no doubt looked like at the very least was even with Kittel. But the organizers systematically zoomed in and saw Kittel winning by the slimmest of margins so he got the win and the Green Jersey.
