The occasion struck David Stanton when he was on the podium and the United States national anthem started playing.
“That was really emotional,” he said.
Stanton, a 70-year-old gastroenterologist from Newport Beach, had just won his first world championship in cycling.
He captured the 70-to-74 age group win in the two-kilometer individual pursuit race at the UCI Masters Track World Championships, held in Roubaix, France in October.
It took him a while to publicize the win, he said, because his drug test after the event took two months to come back clean.
Newport Beach resident David Stanton has been cycling for about 13 years.
(Courtesy of David Stanton)
“I told people for years that I really wanted to pee in a cup, because it would mean I did something really good,” Stanton quipped. “That was true.”
Stanton completed the eight-lap velodrome race in a personal-best time of 2 minutes, 32.69 seconds for gold. His competition in the final, last year’s world champion Ian Humphreys of Great Britain, finished in 2:37.05.
He finished first in the qualifying round, then improved his time in the gold-medal final to claim the rainbow jersey given to race winners.
Stanton, who does much of his training year-round in the Newport Back Bay, started cycling about 13 years ago and has been racing competitively for a decade. He said he has previously won five age-group national championships through USA Cycling, plus a team pursuit world championship in 2022.
This year’s victory definitely stood out, though.
“You get these goals in your head and they seem very far off, but the more you train and the better you get, they get closer,” he said. “Finally, this one happened … Placing and competing against an international field is such a privilege, too. You meet amazing people from all over the world, and you really get an appreciation for how people continue fitness and competition well into their older years.”
David Stanton stands atop the podium at the UCI Masters Track World Championships in France.
(Courtesy of David Stanton)
Stanton’s competition in France included multiple other world champions and a former Olympian, Kent Bostick, who competed at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics in the men’s individual pursuit.
He said cycling is similar to being a doctor, in at least one way.
“I use the same gut it out [mentality],” Stanton said. “You’re used to long hours and daunting tasks from your training in medicine, and you just sort of transfer that over toward whatever else you’re Type A about. This happened to be it.”