Slumped over his bike in the finishing straight, surrounded by reporters and photographers after having just won stage 2 of the Tour of California from an early breakaway, Cannondale Pro Cycling's Ben King had just one thing to say about his result.
"Oh. My. Gosh!" King exclaimed when Cyclingnews asked what the win meant to him following months of recovery from a broken fibula he suffered in a January training crash.
With the peloton bearing down on them, King outsprinted Rally Cycling's Evan Huffman in Santa Clarita after having spent most of the day in a four-rider breakaway that he and Huffman whittled down to just themselves in the final kilometres. It's King's first win since he took a stage and the overall lead at the 2015 Criterium International.
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"Every result I've had in my career has come from a breakaway like this, where people just kind of underestimated the break and gave us a little too much time, like the stage at Criterium International last year when I snagged the yellow jersey," he said.
King seems to thrive as an escapee, and his team director says its because the 27-year-old American is in his element when his nose is in the wind and he's at the head of the race.
"A couple of years ago we asked him to go in the breakaway in Tirreno-Adriatico, and he just went directly," said Cannondale director Charly Wegelius. "In the peloton he struggles a little bit with these constant pace changes, but when he gets his head out in the road it's perfect for him."
Although any win is special for a team, when one of the riders who is normally a worker bee gets to throw his arms up at the finish, there's an increased satisfaction for everyone involved. King's win was even more deserving, Wegelius said, because of how hard he worked to come back from his injury.
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