If you haven’t watched the last stage of the Tour de France Femmes yet, find it. This was the best race I’ve seen all year.

It started with a little uncertainty because although Kasia Niewiadoma was in Yellow by over a minute, Demi Vollering (last year’s winner) had lost the jersey in a crash a couple of days previously. It was a lot of time to take back, but with the Glandon and a finish on Alpe d’Huez, it seemed inevitable that Demi was going to attack early.

And then it came, a few kilometers from the top of the Glandon (the steepest part). Kasia was immediately dropped and a new twist in the maillot jaune story appeared. With a gap of something like a minute and a half on Niewiadoma over the summit, it now seemed inevitable that Demi was going to win. The question just seemed to be by how much.

But Kasia recovered on the descent and was pulled closer to Vollering and Rooijakkers (this is a whole other story!) on the flat towards Le Bourg d’Oisans and the beginning of the final ascent. By the time the climb started, I think the gap was a little over a minute….and it never really moved the whole way up the Alpe! Laurent Jalabert and Nicolas Geay kept trying to figure out how much time Vollering needed on the line to take back the jersey and win the Tour – bonus seconds on the line and the fact that Rooijakkers was now fighting for a potential TDF overall win (if Kasia cracked and she won the stage) made it complicated math, but the consensus was that Vollering needed more than a minute and the gap just kept hanging around there on the entire climb.

In the end, Demi won the stage by outsprinting Rooijakkers, taking 10 bonus seconds in the process. Niewiadoma crossed the line 1:01 later and won the Tour by 4 incredible seconds. Finally we can stop talking about those 8 seconds Lemond won by 4 decades ago! A new legend is born.