{"id":18130,"date":"2026-02-25T10:16:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T10:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/18130\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T10:16:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T10:16:11","slug":"the-longest-photo-finish-debate-clasica-de-almeria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/18130\/","title":{"rendered":"The longest photo-finish debate \u2013 Cl\u00e1sica de Almer\u00eda\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

ROQUETAS DE MAR, SPAIN – FEBRUARY 15: (L-R) Matteo Moschetti of Italy and Team Pinarello Q36.5 Pro Cycling, Biniam Girmay of Eritrea and Team NSN Cycling, Milan Fretin of Belgium and Team Cofidis and Dylan Groenewegen of Netherlands and Team Unibet Rose Rockets sprint at finish line during the 39th Clasica de Almeria 2026 a 189.7km one day race from Puebla de Vicar to Roquetas de Mar on February 15, 2026 in Roquetas de Mar, Spain. (Photo by Dario Belingheri\/Getty Images).<\/p>\n

The results of the Cl\u00e1sica de Almer\u00eda<\/a> were updated on Tuesday, nine days after the race took place.<\/p>\n

After the lengthiest of reviews of the photo-finish, Dylan Groenewegen<\/a> (Unibet-Rose Rockets) was upgraded to the podium, at the expense of Matteo Moschetti (Pinarello-Q36.5).<\/p>\n

Biniam Girmay<\/a> (NSN Pro Cycling) clearly won the Cl\u00e1sica de Almeria<\/a> in the south of Spain last Sunday, February 15, with Milan Fretin the runner-up just behind. But it was the tightest of calls for final podium place between Groenewegen and Moschetti, throwing their bikes to the line on either side of the Eritrean winner.<\/p>\n

At the time, Moschetti was declared in third place, with Groenewegen in fourth.<\/p>\n

This was disputed at the time by Unibet-Rose Rockets, albeit in a tongue-in-cheek way. The team, which has built its marketing on social media and YouTube, posted a photo screenshot from the television coverage showing the moment Groenewegen\u2019s and Moschetti\u2019s wheels hit the line.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan someone share the finish photo? Asking for a friend\u2026\u201d read the caption.<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Unibet Rose Rockets on X (@rockets_cycling))<\/p>\n

More than a week later, they had their response.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter a reinvestigation of the finish photo at Clasica de Almeria, we got a message that Dylan actually finished 3rd instead of 4th, turning a strong sprint into a podium,\u201d said the team on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou didn\u2019t throw away those flowers already, right?\u201d they added, in a message to Moschetti\u2019s Pinarello-Q36.5 team.<\/p>\n

The UCI results have indeed been updated, with Groenewegen upgraded to third place. It’s not a win, but does add 25 UCI points to the team’s ranking \u2013 every little bit helps.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ROQUETAS DE MAR, SPAIN – FEBRUARY 15: (L-R) Matteo Moschetti of Italy and Team Pinarello Q36.5 Pro Cycling,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18131,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1042,4895,4898,4893,1202,4896,4894,4733,4897,1046,51],"class_list":{"0":"post-18130","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-zurich","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-daily-news","10":"tag-global-news","11":"tag-inkl","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-news-app","14":"tag-news-headlines","15":"tag-news-today","16":"tag-today-news","17":"tag-world-news","18":"tag-zurich"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18130\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}