Sporting results can be hard to pick, many predictions do not come to fruition.
That was not the case at the North Island Cross Country Championships in Rotorua today.Commonwealth Games gold medallist Anton Cooper, of Canterbury, was expected to dominate the elite men's race and he duly obliged.
The wet and slippery 5.5km track, of which the elite men completed five laps, did not prevent a day of fast-paced racing as Cooper took the lead early and then went into cruise control, winning by a comfortable seven minutes in a time of 1h 21m 08s.
Anton Cooper led all the way at the North Island Cross Country Championships in Rotorua. Photo / Ben Fraser
Cooper said the win was a pleasing start to the 2018 season.
"I felt pretty good, it's always interesting - the first proper race of the season - and to come away with the win is always nice, but to feel good doing it is a bonus.
"I didn't really have too much of a strategy, I just wanted to go in and ride a consistent race. I knew the conditions were tricky so I tried to ride consistent and smooth, I opened up a good lead on the first hill.
"Awesome tracks, really, really fun tracks. It's got to be one of the best courses I've raced on interms of how much I enjoyed it," Cooper said.
While Cooper left the others in his dust, the fight for second place was an enthralling battle between two local Sams - of the Shaw and Osborne variety.
Sam Osborne from Rotorua came third. Photo / Ben Fraser
Xterra Asia-Pacific champion Sam Osborne led Singlespeed World champion and Enduro World Series rider Sam Shaw for the majority of the race, but as the riders entered the final lap Shaw had taken a narrow lead.
The crowd waited in anticipation to see which order the two riders would emerge from the forest in and it was Shaw, who knows the local trails better than most people know their own driveways, who held on and took second place by 40 seconds over Osborne.
Shaw said he was "stoked" with second place.
"I came in knowing [Cooper] was going to deal to us, but I wanted to see how long I could hold onto him for. I was pretty happy to hold on for, I think, maybe three minutes and then recover the rest of the race," he laughed.
Rotorua's Sam Shaw. Photo/Ben Fraser
He said the battle with Osborne made it a fun race.
"It was a bit of fun tossing and turning, I went back to fourth for half the race and then found some energy."
Osborne said the race was "pretty tough".
"I always knew it was going to be hard, I haven't really done anything to sharpen up for this kind of racing so I was always going to be thrown into the deep end. But, I was impressed with how the legs responded," he said.
While there were no elite women racing, the two Auckland riders entered in the under-23 race set a cracking pace and it was Jessica Manchester who finished her four laps in 1h 26m 22s to beat Charlotte Rayner by two minutes and 24 seconds.
Of the Rotorua riders, Connor Johnston and Ruby Ryan finished second in the under-19 men and women respectively, while Cameron Beck won the under-15 boys' race. Garth Weinberg and Mike Spanbroek picked up wins in the masters categories.
