A sprint finish - but who was it against?

During Saturday's Highland Fling race I ended up in a sprint finish, as I reported in my race review:

Just after coming into the forest before Tyndrum I passed someone else, then managed to trip and had my first fall of the day. I shouted a few well chosen words, picked myself up, and powered towards the finish, determined to stay in front of the person I had just passed. I succeeded, but only just. I'm not sure I needed a sprint finish at that stage.

Well, the results of the race were published on Monday and I was very surprised that there was no-one listed as finishing just a couple of seconds behind me. Steven King was 36 seconds in front and Kendra-Anne White was 2 minutes and 3 seconds behind. Being a very pedantic person, this puzzled me greatly. I could only think of 2 possible explanations: either Murdo (the race organiser) had mixed up Steven King and me in the results, and then got the times wrong (which seemed unlikely), or the person I had the sprint finish with wasn't in the race at all.

As it was still puzzling me today, I e-mailed Steven King to ask him if he was in a sprint finish with someone - in other words to check out the first possible explanation. He came back and said that he had indeed finished about 36 seconds in front of me, and remembered my sprint finish well, as he was sitting on the ground beside the finish line at the time. The results had confused him too, as he had thought there were 3 people between him and his clubmate Lynne Kuz, but the results only showed 2.

So the only possible explanation would appear to be that I got involved in a sprint finish on Saturday, over the final quarter mile of a 53 mile race, with someone who wasn't even in the race. I have to say that I find that greatly amusing.