Former St Matthew's Collegiate student Anita Williamson was "blown away" by her second placing in the mixed team's section at New Zealand's highest-profile multispoirt event, the 2006 Coast to Coast. Williamson, 24, combined with Napier's Cameron Drury for the second successive year and after finishing third at their first attempt theywere hopeful of making another bold showing. But placing second in a time close to one hour better than last year's effort was something which caught even Williamson by surprise. "Honestly, we never anticipated doing that well," she said. "The field was actually stronger than last year and so we weren't even counting on making the top three again.It was pretty much a case of doing our best and see what happens." The mixed team's section of an event which traverses 244km of the South Island from Kumara Beach on the Tasman Sea to Sumner Beach on the Pacific Ocean was staged over two days. The first of them saw Jury complete a 3km run and a 55km cycle ride and Williamson a 33km mountain run. Then on the second day Jury undertook a 16km bike ride and 67km kayak and then Williamson biked 70km to the race finish. The big gains for Williamson and Jury on last year's performance came in the mountain run and the kayak. Williamson's time of 4hr 10min57s for the mountain run was an improvement of about 30mins on her 2005 effort while Drury, a national representative in white water slalom, produced the fastest time of all in the kayak, a sizzling 4hr 16min 53. Whether Williamson and Drury will be part of the Coast to Coast action again in 2007 is questionable, as with Williamson about to finish her studies at Massey University and Drury intent on making an impact on the international kayaking scene the opportunity may not arise. "Obviously it would be nice to think we could have another crack at it but right now that doesn't seem too likely," Williamson said.
