Great race from Brand. She is genuinely a really good climber - you don't get to be 4th in the Giro without some capability in the mountains - but because she isn't explosive on the punchy stuff that sometimes gets overlooked. She hasn't had a mountains performance like this for some time as she's focused more on CX too, but clearly that skill never left her.
Strong race from Chapman too, I thought - as, looking at the prediction game, did many others - that Évita Muzic was the obvious leader for FDJ here but she clearly didn't have the form and Chapman was one of a few who really stood out to me on the climb outperforming expectations - I know that Brodie is a good climber but I wouldn't have pegged her to beat Rooijakkers, Magnaldi and Koppenburg here (although once it was a sprint between those it was clear she would be favourite in that). Floortje Mackaij also climbed really well, I thought, I thought this would be a little too far for her as a climb and that those of LBL are around her threshold but clearly she has a bit more versatility for the longer climbs. Great battle with Faulkner fighting back but to be honest, with only 4 seconds between them, as soon as she couldn't drop Brand it was over; you'd back Lucinda in the two-up and although Faulkner is only three years younger than Brand, with her being a late convert to the sport the difference in experience is huge in comparison.
Also a good showing for Hitec from young Ingvild Gåskjenn, she was 11th on Black Mountain in the Women's Tour and now 9th here on a similar length but steeper climb, I'd kind of thought of her as doing best in stages that were hilly enough to drop elite sprinters but she had had precious little opportunity to show this kind of climbing ability before.