It's a chess match in real time. Pure game theory. ThisIsIt has a point. She could have started playing games to put herself in a better situation. But it's a game that's very easily armchair quarterbacked.

Mara was legit. Johannson and Van der Breggen looked ragged. You have massive firepower not very far behind, and no race radio to call in gaps. What do you do? Really tough call, but playing games is often a Bad Idea. Road races like this are a series of hundreds of little decisions. Borghini played the game nearly to perfection. Yeah, arguably, in hindsight she could have done better, but anyone who think that the decision was obvious or that what she did was some kind of blunder has probably never raced bikes all that much.