People will call it luck. Let them. You know what the last two years of prep looked like.

Outcomes are visible and preparation is not, so observers reach for the only explanation available to them. It stings because it erases the part that was hard, and arguing about it rarely changes anyone’s mind. Their account of your work is not a fact about your work.

Keep your own record, honestly, including the genuine luck, because there usually is some. Write down what you actually did in the years nobody saw. Then let other people’s version be their business. The only real cost of being called lucky is if you start believing it.