While the relief was palpable on the face - and in the words - of Sam Bennett after his stage 2 victory at La Vuelta today, the Irishman was rock solid in repeating what he has said all season; he knew his winning sprint would come back to him.
Bennett beat Mads Pederson (Trek-Segafredo) and Tim Merlier (Alpecin-Deceuninck) into 2nd and 3rd today at the end of the 175.1km stage into Utrecht.
Just as important as taking the win; the lead-out was perfect and Bennett's kick - which has looked laboured this season - was back to its fluid and powerful best. It was just Bennett's second win of the year and his first victory on a Grand Tour since the Tour de France in 2020.
Asked how it felt to win a stage of a Grand Tour two years after his last victory on a three-week race - into Paris at the Tour de France - Bennett said: "It's nice. But I knew I'd do it again. It's just a matter of getting the right legs.
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"What I'm really happy about is continuing my pattern of… each Grand Tour since 2018 I've won at least one stage in each. So I'm happy to continue that."
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Bennett was also full of praise for his lead-out riders, especially the speed of the final surge Danny van Poppel put in to launch his Irish team mate for the final kick to the line.
"Danny brought me up with speed and then he was ready for me to jump. And I didn't, I waited for just a second and I didn't know did I let my speed drop a little bit too much," Bennett said of that all important moment of reaching for the afterburners.
"Danny was coming with so much speed, I should have went straight away so I was a bit nervous I wouldn't get on top of the speed again. But in the end we came from behind and Danny delivered… Danny, he didn't deliver me, he launched me," the Irishman laughed of the strength of the lead-out.
"It was down to the boys today, they did a fantastic job. Bringing me to the intermediate (sprint) we tried to just collect points, we didn't try to go for the actual first place to keep the legs for the final. And then they brought me to the (finish) line with great legs.
"In the moment you are just racing. I was more worried about holding on (to top speed in the sprint) than being worried about passing people."
