Coast to Coast’s youngest winner Cameron Jones taking it all in his stride

For most year 12s, crossing the South Island in a little over 12 hours would qualify them for a well-earned breather. 

Not Cameron Jones. Two days after winning the individual two-day race in last week's Coast to Coast the Waimea College multisporter was back into action.

"The Coast to Coast race finished on Saturday, I recovered on Sunday, on Monday I had a short orienteering race around Waimea College and on Tuesday and Wednesday I was mountain biking," he told College Sport Media. 

This coming weekend he enters a different race. 

"This Saturday is the Mountain Bike National Championships at Cardrona in Wanaka and I'm in the U19 race this year. It's going to be a big field and really competitive, there's some fast guys in there." Last year he won the U17s race at the same event. 

In winning his division of the Coast to Coast last week, Cameron became the youngest winner of the individual two-day race in its 34-year history.

He won by almost 40 minutes in 12hr 19min 5sec. The second placed finisher was 16-year-old Oliver Thompson of Trident High School in Whakatane.  

Cameron said he was confident of doing well ahead of the race, which saw competitors cross the 243km width of the South Island. 

"I put in quite a bit of work leading up to the race, and had been putting in some good times leading up to it, looking at previous results. It is really who turns up on the day, you can control what time you do but you can't control the pace if there's someone faster. I was secretly hoping to win."

His competitors were largely an unknown to him as well. "The guy who was second after the first day I hadn’t heard of. Oliver, who finished second, is the same age as me. I was keeping an eye on him; I knew he was a good paddler. 

Cameron talked through his Coast to Coast win.

"For the first 55km ride I got into the front bunch of team cyclists. The pace was quite high and I ended up holding a 10 minute lead. I went into the [30km] run not feeling as fresh as I would have liked but I got through the run in the time I was hoping to get, 3hr 35min, and I held that 10 minute lead.

The second day involved running, cycling and kayaking to the finish line at New Brighton Pier in Christchurch. 

"Day two was a short ride to the kayak transition.”I had a few issues in the kayak and had to get out a couple of times to walk. There was a group of the top five individuals all heading into the gorge, about an hour into the paddle. Then Oliver and I pulled away and got out of our kayaks together. Then on to the last ride I pulled away from him and also finished third or fourth including all the team competitors."

This was Cameron's second Coast to Coast, having been in Waimea College's winning three-person team last year. In December 2015 he was part of Waimea College's junior adventure racing team that won the national Get2Go challenge series final. 

He said he's been involved in multisport for a few years now. "My background's mountain biking and I started doing local duathlons. I starting kayaking in year seven and started to paddle a tippy boat and worked my way up that way."

His Coast to Coast coach Trevor Voyce put him on a 10-week training plan over the summer. His training program had him doing an average of 17 hours per week.

Cameron says after this weekend he'll most likely be competing in some upcoming local races. "It all depends on how I go this weekend; I'd like to earn selection for the mountain bike world champs in Cairns in Australia later in the year."

Then there's also school cross country and athletics and then moving into winter there's a few multisport races he's interested in such as the Crazyman and 3D events. "If I go to them I won't have done as much kayaking and running if I go hard for the mountain bike world champs though."
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Cameron is also starting NCEA Level 2, with maths and science his favourite subjects. If his multisport and mountain biking career continues apace he'll soon be counting his sporting achievements. 

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