This was all a rather funny fluke.

Because of the break-away, and chasers, and favorable terrain, the women were pounding the course hard, and the men weren't, perhaps saving a little for the upcoming hills, perhaps it just took some effort to get the peloton up to speed. Conservative riding?

The expectation was for the gap between women and men to widen, and it probably would have in a hillier section of the course, but it narrowed instead.

A 15 minute gap, and the women likely wouldn't have caught the men, at least this time... next time.... who knows????

What if there was a major crash taking out the entire Men's Peloton? Could they have gotten the jumbled mess of broken bikes cleaned up within 10 minutes? Or, perhaps simply push all the broken bikes off the road and neutralize everyone who went down????

All the women who finished did so quite some time before the men, but mixing races at the finish would have been the worst possible outcome, so one has to be careful with the timing.

The issue here is how to prioritize stopping a race to be the most fair to all. Typically the fastest group goes through, and the slowest group is neutralized. But, in this case, the fast riders were slowest, and the slow riders were fastest.

Turning the entire Men's Peloton off of the course and allowing the women to race through technically would have been possible, but would also have been a major hassle. Take a side street like I suggested the support vehicles should have done?