Saturday’s stage was billed as the queen stage of the four-day race, featuring six categorized climbs. The final ascent was a real test: over two kilometers at an average gradient of nearly eight percent, with the summit right at the finish line.

As the race unfolded, Team Visma | Lease a Bike once again made their ambitions clear — and on multiple fronts. The team was sharp during an intermediate sprint, allowing Brennan to pick up a few valuable bonus seconds.

An increasingly thinned-out peloton, partly due to the hard pace set by the black-and-yellow squad, battled it out on the final climb. Brennan responded smartly to attacks from Alessandro Covi and Jan Christen, while teammate Jørgen Nordhagen also impressed by holding his position near the front. After neutralizing several moves, Brennan launched an attack of his own. The neo-pro looked set to claim victory, but in the closing meters, Van Gils just edged him out on the line.

Brennan shared his thoughts after the finish. “Today, our goals were clear: we wanted to win the stage and keep the leader’s jersey. The team put me in a great position all day. We may have just missed out on the win, but we gave everything. Everyone contributed, and I can only be thankful for my teammates”, said the Brit.

“Throughout the stage, I felt I had good legs again”, Brennan continued. “But it was a question of seeing how the others were doing. On paper, this isn’t a finish that suits me perfectly. I responded to all the attacks and was able to cover them. In the end, I might have launched my sprint a touch too early, and that cost me in the final meters. That’s just how racing goes sometimes. We’ve done good work for the GC, and we hope to finish this race in the best possible way tomorrow.”