Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory — when cycling celebrations go wrong

It's one of the more bizarre facets of professional cycling that on an embarrassingly regular basis we'll see a rider throw away certain victory with an excruciating implosion centimetres from the finish line. Dutch sprinter Lorena Wiebes last weekend became the latest to fall foul of the most common celebration mishap — the premature victory salute — as Marianne Vos sailed past on the inside to nab Amstel Gold Race.

And while Wiebes' bulging palmares of wins and several seasons atop the sprinting hierarchy will dampen the blow of one that got away, she was still disconsolate after the finish, left to rue her "very stupid" mistake that "happens to every cyclist at some point".

Marianne Vos WINS Amstel Gold Women right on the line! 🏁🤯

The Visma-Lease a Bike rider steals victory from Lorena Wiebes with a 𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒇𝒆𝒄𝒕𝒍𝒚-𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆𝒅 throw!#AGR2024 pic.twitter.com/XrusDsIBcT

— Eurosport (@eurosport) April 14, 2024

That last point might not strictly be true (some of us are far too slow to even have the chance to chuck away victory) but more than a few of the world's best have suffered the ignominy of a finish-line fumble over the years. Erik Zabel, Wout van Aert, Julian Alaphilippe, those two amateurs responsible for that skin-crawlingly bad early celebration at a local French race? You're in good company, Lorena... here's our round-up of all the times cycling celebrations went wrong...

Milan-San Remo 2004 — 12-time Tour de France stage winner and six-time green jersey Erik Zabel is after a fifth victory at the opening monument of the season. To be fair, with a record like that, you probably would be safe to assume it's in the bag when you're clear of the rest with a few metres to go. Unless, of course, Óscar Freire has snuck up your inside with a perfectly timed surge. 

As if we needed any more proof that it can happen to the best, up stepped Julian Alaphilippe at Liège–Bastogne–Liège in 2020. Much like a sheepish striker blazing wide an open goal but finding a crumb of comfort in the linesman's offside flag, the two-time world champion's blushes were ever so slightly spared by the fact he was relegated to fifth for cutting up Marc Hirschi in the sprint. Still, not much consolation when you've just done this.

Zabel, Alaphilippe, Wiebes, Van Aert. Strong company in the premature celebration club, the Belgian classics star telling the TV cameras "you sometimes laugh about it but now I'm the loser" after letting David Gaudu pinch victory on the line on stage three of the 2022 Critérium du Dauphiné.

You're starting to see a theme here, aren't you? Back in 2017, British sprinter Dan McLay was the beneficiary of some premature partying from Anthony Turgis at Tour de l'Eurométropole. Worse still for the Frenchman, Kenny Dehaes also got around him, leaving the Cofidis man on the bottom step of the podium. Ouch.

 More recently, Uno-X climber Tobias Johannessen got mugged by Lenny Martinez at this year's Classic Var, the Norwegian rider's leisurely stroll towards the finish line on the summit finish probably not helping, neither the lack of information from his team car that we're assuming was absent, given his baffled look behind.

Cult finish pic.twitter.com/JG6lGmg82U

— the Inner Ring (@inrng) February 16, 2024

We're still trying to work out if it's better to celebrate a few metres too early or an entire lap. Luka Pibernik stealing the show for all the wrong reasons on stage five of the Giro d'Italia in 2017, the Bahrain-Merida rider thinking he'd landed a famous victory in teammate Vincenzo Nibali's home town of Messina. Alas, a lap premature, Fernando Gaviria winning the sprint later on.

That awkward moment when you celebrate too early 🙈

A shocker for @Bahrain_Merida rider Luka Pibernik #Giro100 pic.twitter.com/AfWQAW1Ria

— Eurosport (@eurosport) May 10, 2017

Poor Eloy Teruel suffered a similar fate at the Tour of California a few years earlier. The Spanish rider at least saw the funny side, writing on Twitter later that evening: "Wanted to win, thank goodness no-one saw it, hahahahaha!"

A slightly different variation of the genre next, Annemiek van Vleuten and Jasper Philipsen's famous 'victories'. The fact a rider — in Van Vleuten's case Anna Kiesenhofer's underdog Olympic gold and in Philipsen's that pesky Van Aert out for revenge after his Dauphiné disappointment — had already crossed the finish line acted as a brutal party-pooping pin in the celebratory balloon.

That's the professionals done, but you didn't think we'd forget about the amateurish amateurs, did you? It's time to take things up a notch.

Two teammates were left with a very frosty podium snap after sitting up to celebrate their breakaway win at a local French race, creating the perfect image of the two arm in arm enjoying victory. That was until a charging rider from behind overtook in the final 10 metres and gave us some finish-line drama for the ages.

Pain.

Over at the Vuelta Ciclistica Internacional a Guatemala a viral video was born, yellow jersey Gerson Toc the only rider on this list to actually win their race (on GC at least), that despite crashing across the finish line on the final stage as his coordinated team photo went very wrong very quickly.

Fortunately no injuries. The moment in all it's comedic glory...

Ciclismo granjero pic.twitter.com/OYZnNuwkqE

— Javier (@romeoruiz__) November 26, 2023

Finishing off with one closer to home and a return to the premature celebration gold standard, Jamie Wilkins gracing a town centre criterium in Cirencester with this exemplary 'Oh ****' moment after punching the air a couple of seconds too soon.

There you go, our look at all the times a celebration fail has left a cyclist (pro or otherwise) a little red-faced. Fortunately for us, it's one of the great benefits of never having anywhere near enough ability to actually touch the sharp end of a bike race, let alone be in a position to chuck victory away. Get in the comments if we've missed any, we're quite confident it won't be too long before we're back to add another agonising defeat to the list.