New Zealand BMX star Trent Jones scored an impressive victory in the second round of the Australian BMX Championship on the Gold Coast yesterday.
Jones took out the win in the grand final of the Olympic qualifying event at Nerang, beating off world champion and London Olympic medallist Sam Willoughby and a world class field in the process.
The Cycling New Zealand high performance rider got the jump from the gate in the grand final and held off Anthony Dean and Corey Frieswyk with Willoughby crashing at the back of the field. North Harbour’s Michael Bias was sixth.
“To beat the world champion and some of the best riders in the world is unreal,” Jones said.
“I’ve been trying to beat those guys for two years now and it’s not that long ago I had a poster of Sam on my wall.
“He was winning big international races almost as soon as he went overseas and I looked up to him.”
In other racing, Taranaki’s Victoria Hill was fourth in the elite women’s final won by two-time world champion Caroline Buchanan; North Canterbury’s Tahlia Hansen held off Papakura’s Zoe Fleming in the junior women’s final and Codi Merito (Te Awamutu) was fourth in the junior men’s grand final.
Matthew Cameron, also in Cycling New Zealand’s high performance squad, was the best of the Kiwis in fourth place on the first night of the competition on Friday, won by Dean with Hill fourth in the elite women, while Fleming edged Hansen in the junior women.
The New Zealanders are planning to head back to Australia for the next round of racing in Victoria later this month, with important qualifying points up for grabs towards the Rio Olympics.
Caption: Trent Jones in action in Berlin. Photo credit: Craig Dutton.
