I think that was a foul-up by the racing authorities not to either give them both a gold medal or do the race-off that Pinsent (I think it was) kept suggesting. If you're going to give them the same time and the photo-finish didn't make it any clearer then there needs to be a better way of making a distinction than there appears to be.
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Totally agree with this, that would have been the fairest way to decide