Anton Cooper wins Oceania mountain bike championships

Anton Cooper Oceania Mountain Bike Championship. Credit Annalieese Cooper

Subaru Brand Ambassador Anton Cooper listened to his body, took it easy for a week, then rode with reinvigorated form to win the elite men’s cross country title at the Oceania Mountain Bike Championships in Queenstown last weekend.

The course suited Cooper and after a tough outing at the mountain biking nationals, where he finished second the weekend previously, he only did two days training before the Queenstown race.

“I think that just made all the difference for Oceania’s,” Cooper says.

“I really liked the course. It had a lot of climbing, a few steep pinches and some steep descents”.

Cooper beat Australia's world number eight Dan McConnell to the line by 18 seconds and in doing so he made it one-win-each in his battle with fellow Kiwi rider Sam Gaze for the one New Zealand cross country mountain bike spot for the Rio Olympics in August.

Gaze finished fourth at the Oceania Champs but won the nationals after Cooper punctured and spent over a minute changing the tyre.

The Oceania race marked the end of Cooper’s month-long stint living at altitude at the 1650m Cardrona skifield. Far from being a relaxing summer destination riding the trails, it was Cooper’s base for four, tough training weeks after winning February’s seven-day Pioneer mountain bike race from Christchurch to Queenstown.

The epic Pioneer included 569km of riding with 15,273km of climbing and Cooper teamed up with Australian rider McConnell to take the victory.

“We smashed the Pioneer but we smashed ourselves. We pushed harder than we really wanted to and that’s what really hurt me at the nationals,” Cooper says.

Although training up at Cardrona was tough and “very demanding on the body”, Cooper’s mode of transport – a Subaru Outback – made travel logistics easy.

He loaded up the spacious SUV at his home in North Canterbury with two bikes in the cabin, which evolves into an enviable cargo space with split fold rear seats adding 22-litres of additional boot space. There was still room for a month’s worth of luggage and all his tools, while the third bike went up on the roof racks.

“I did a lot of gravel kilometres in my Subaru Outback this summer, up and down the Cardrona skifield each day. I also travelled out into some great adventure areas, like Skippers Canyon, to vary my training and the Outback was always smooth and composed to drive,” Cooper says.

Like all Subaru models the Outback is All Wheel Drive, which meant Cooper enjoyed the comfort of a passenger vehicle but could still rely on having the off-road capability of an SUV.

He has packed his Outback back up to head from Wanaka back to Woodend for three weeks before he races his first World Cup race for the season on April 24 in Cairns, Australia.

Then in May he will park his Outback in the garage for four months while he travels to Europe, where he will compete in World Cup events, the World Championships “and hopefully the Olympics,” Cooper says.

Aged 21, he has chosen to race in the elite grade overseas, instead of the under-23 age group category he won the World Championships in last year.

“I could race under-23 but I choose to step up. It is important in Olympic year to race the top guys before then,” Cooper says.

“It is a good challenge and motivating racing in front of the 20,000 to 30,000 spectators. The sound they make is pretty crazy and it brings out the best in me.”

Cooper does not expect to find out whether he has qualified for the Olympics until mid-June. The decision will be basically results driven and he hopes to continue the momentum from his Oceania Championships win.

“If I had the same legs I raced with at the Oceania’s each day that I race from now, I will be confident of making the NZ Olympic team,” he says.