In the spirit of this thread, that begs a question - what is the record for the highest number of ex aequo finishers in the same race? Perhaps, in the early days of cycling, three or even four riders could not be separated at the line?
The reality, as it turns out, is much crazier. In the final stage of the 1920 Giro, no less than nine riders were declared the winner. I’m not actually sure what happened - BikeRaceInfo claims a horse broke onto the course during the sprint, disrupting the race completely, whereas Wikipedia tells me that some riders were sent onto the hippodrome where the race finished through the wrong entrance, causing another rider to overtake them. In any case, it appears that the GC times were retroactively taken at the entrance to the hippodrome (remind you of anything?).
As insane as that story is, it’s not even close to what I believe to be the real answer. Enter the 2004 Noord-Nederland Tour, where a mind-boggling 22 riders ended up sharing the victory.
22? In 2004?? How in the *** did that happen?
This article provides the answers. I’ve translated the relevant parts below, with a couple of appendages on my part.
Then, too, there were races where the convoying of the riders went completely wrong, and that was also the case on that warm day in June in the centre of Leeuwarden. A front group of no less than 22 riders, including the likes of Erik Dekker and Rudi Kemna, rode the final circuits in the middle of regular road traffic [because, as per a different source, the organisation sent them the wrong way]. The riders had enough of it and decided to come to a standstill on the finish line to demand a safe finale. Only Matthé Pronk decided to push on alone, but was ultimately not recognised as the leader within the race by the jury. I cannot recall whether the finish was actually safe after the restart, but I do recall Bobbie Traksel winning the race [in a sprint]. I interviewed the then-Rabobank rider, who was happy to win in his own country, the victory ceremony was carried out and riders and fans went their separate ways. For me, what remained was a short walk to the improvised press centre, where I was on my own. Doubtlessly, the Frisian press had left for their own workplaces. As luck would have it, the press centre was in the same room where the jury was meeting, because otherwise I, much like my Frisian colleagues, would have gone home thinking Bobbie Traksel had won the race.
As I was typing up my story, I noticed that the jury meeting was not following the usual pattern of ‘are there any questions, should we give the organisation any advice, good work everyone’. The Briton Ken Farmes, supported by the Dutchman Erwin Kistemaker, decided to annul the race results and declare all 22 riders in the front group as the winners. Look it up on ProCyclingStats: not only Bobbie Traksel won the race, but also Niels Scheuneman, the late Arno Wallaard, Rudie Kemna, Bert Hiemstra, Matthé Pronk, Marvin van der Pluijm, Eelke van der Wal, Erik Dekker, Tom Veelers, Gerben Lowik, Paul van Schalen, Arne Kornegoor, Rik Reinierink, Thorwald Veneberg, Stefan Kupfernagel, Roy Sentjens, Preben van Hecke, Igor Abakumov, Dennis Haueisen, Allan Bo Andresen and Nico Mattan. When I asked the jury for a reaction after the meeting, they answered that ‘because the finale could not be raced in a normal way, there can also be no winner’. As proof, I also received a result sheet in which a 1 had been noted in front of the first 22 riders. Bizarre.
Social media were not as developed then as they are now, so I quickly realised that Traksel himself did not yet know what the jury had declared to be the results. So I called his then-DS Adri van Houwelingen and took at least 10 minutes to convince both him and Traksel, in their Rabobank team car, that I was both sober and completely serious when I told them what had ended up happening in Leeuwarden. ‘I have the trophy of the organisation here in the car, for goodness sake!’, exclaimed Traksel, who called the victory ceremony a sham and, together with Van Houwelingen, criticised the jury and the security of Dutch courses [again, remind you of anything?].
Surely, that has to be one of the most surreal stories in the history of the sport, and also one that deserves mentioning in some other categories - most incompetent race organisation and most baffling jury decision, for example.
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