Mount Maunganui College head boy Sam Durrant took top spot in this year's New Zealand secondary schools multisport championships in Rotorua, although he needed every inch of his triathlon experience to head off a couple of unlikely front-runners.
The 17-year-old Durrant finished the 25km Grassroots Challenge, part of the Expand-A-Sign3D multisport festival, in 1hr 36mins 8secs, after the 6km kayak, 15km mountain bike and 6km run on Lake Okareka and through the stunning Whakarewarewa Forest.
But he overhauled outstanding Rangitoto College female star Danielle McKenzie only on the final run leg, after both had to chase 14-year-old Trident College tyro Campbell Reid, who put in an incredible kayak leg.
Durrant, who was third in his age group at the national sprint triathlon championships in Kinloch earlier this year, had a lot of ground to make up after exiting the kayak in 21st position, nearly 7mins behind the leaders.
"I didn't think I was capable of winning it after that kayak - I was kind of aiming for top-five at that stage - but I pushed pretty hard on the bike and came off as second male, which was a big surprise," Durrant said. "I've had a bit of mountain biking experience and that was definitely the leg where you could make up a lot of time but I still needed to work hard on the run."
Durrant is Mount College's cross-country champion, though he has been kayaking for only the past year after getting inspired by coach and Coast to Coast finisher, Lyndy Wickham.
His 42m21s mountain bike leg was the fastest of the day, while he posted the third fastest run time, finishing 2m35s clear of the next fastest male, Dunstan High School pupil Sam McCulloch, with Trident's Sam Oliver third.
McKenzie won the girls race at the inaugural festival last year but she nearly completed a gender clean-sweep this time around.
The national age group triathlon champion is also a New Zealand surf lifesaving squad member and title holder, and she used all her race nous to finish in 1:37:14, just over a minute behind Durrant. She was second off the water after a brilliant 21m40s kayak leg and kept the hammer down over the final two legs to finish nearly 15mins clear of her closest female challenger, another Trident competitor, Janneke Olthuis.
"I'd only just bought a mountain bike before last year's race and this year, I decided to do a bit of K1 paddling beforehand," McKenzie explained.
As good as McKenzie's paddling was, even she had no answer for young Campbell Reid, who stormed out to a big lead in his K1 to post the fastest time, a withering 20m59sec.
He was still in front of his much older rivals after the bike leg but faded to finish fourth male in 1:39:00.
