ROOKS
LOVERIDGE
ickey had been unbeaten for most of
this year’s New Zealand Cross-country
Championships, his winning each of
the first three of four rounds this season
meaning he’d wrapped up the senior grade
with a round to spare.
He didn’t have to, but he showed up anyway
at the fourth and final round of the series
six weeks later, on May 25, with all pressure
off, nothing left to prove, the national title
already in his possession.
But one question still remained... which rider
would take the junior title? With only three
of the four rounds to be counted and riders
discarding their one worst result, that battle
for junior glory went right down to the wire at
the final round, the battleground located on
farmland between Taumarunui and Kuratau.
The race (and title) was eventually decided
midway through the final lap of the day.
There were just five points between Raglan’s
Coby Rooks and Eltham’s defending national
junior champion Adam Loveridge at the
start of the day and, with the discard rule
at the back of their minds, they knew that
whomever won the final 90-minute race
would take the title for 2019.
Rooks took the holeshot, but Loveridge
snatched the lead soon after the start of
the junior race. However, trouble with a bog
section on lap two cost him the lead and
Rooks took the advantage, stretching out a
handy lead.
But Loveridge quickly recovered and the
battle at the front between the pair see-
sawed over the following laps, with Loveridge
back in front as they began the seventh and
final lap.
However, once again Loveridge came
unstuck in the tricky bog and Rooks
grabbed the lead, which he held until the
end, eventually winning the race – and the
national title – by just four seconds, one of
the closest results in many years.
Taupo’s Wil Yeoman finished third in the
junior race at Taumarunui and also claimed
third overall for the series.
KIWI RIDER 31