I operated the photo finish at the Amstel Gold Race for a few years, in the early 2000s, as well as at many other races in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. We weren't a constant presence at that event, as the association liked it better to either bring in their own people, or rather full-time professionals like the company that does La Tour de France. My boss at that time later sold his timing business to the guy who operated the photo finish this year (the one being interviewed).

While all folks involved here take great pride in their work, the alignment of the camera just never got the attention it clearly deserved. No one ever did the math and they just assumed the difference wasn't significant. Also, people just liked it better to align the camera on the white part of the finish line, since it greatly improves the contrast of the capture. I am sure the equipment has improved, but for a long time, the only thing you were concerned about was contrast, a sudden change in weather (lighting) was known to, at times, render the entire operation useless. Particularly since we were a small operation with only one (photo-finish) camera. Plenty of times I had to climb up ladders and vans to make eleventh hour adjustments to the equipment, with the contestants already in sight.

I feel super bad for the guy. To his defense, the responsibility lies with the UCI officials. To their defense, they do not check up on details like this. Until now, that is.

I remember at least one other time where the broadcast camera (they also tend to have one exactly on the finish line) seemed in disagreement with our "official" photo finish results. That time, a simple shrug did the trick: "hey, photo finish, you know".

Hi Sverhagen, thanks for such an interesting insight. I do feel bad for the guy too, tough gig to have the cycling world analysing you just trying to do your job - especially when there are so many variables he'd have to account for.

And 99.9% of the time it wouldn't make a difference, he's just very unlucky that this time it may have (or may not have, but either way it's brought a focus to the camera position).

I see you're now a software engineer. How did you end up moving from photo-finish operations to software?

The photo finish thing was part of the family business of my neighbors, where I grew up. I did it as a side gig to going to school/college, where I studied electronics, then software engineering. The software I wrote during all that, for the results processing of these cycling events, and of which I sold a few copies around the world, was the reference to get me my first programming (day) job: https://www.totaalsoftware.com/products/stagerace

Edit: looks like the Amstel Gold guy is still using a copy of my software, he has it on his website, neat!

That’s obviously wrong because if they had pointed at the black line, the background of the picture wouldn’t have been the white part of the bar.