Rotorua's Sam Osborne battled the Philippine heat and a tyre puncture to finish second at Xterra Danao.
He was less than a minute behind South African Xterra World Champion Bradley Weiss, who beat him at the same event last year.
Osborne led Weiss out of the water, bus disaster struck on the bike.
"I felt really good in the race, had good feeling in the swim and some great legs on the bike, but luck wasn't entirely on my side. I punctured at the end of the first lap on the bike - I was fortunate enough to get it fixed fairly quickly but I lost all of the lead and had to ride back across to Brad.
"I closed the gap but you don't ride across a 15-second gap to the world champ on one hill without burning some matches.