if you blinked

women's ronde van vlaanderen 2021

If you blinked, you wouldn’t necessarily have missed it; such was the pace on the agonizingly steep slope and harsh cobbles of the Paterberg after nearly 140 kilometers of hard racing. It was hardly a surprise to anyone who has ever watched much (or perhaps any) of the last decade of women’s cycling. Once it happened, the suspense of an otherwise beauti…