Mountain biking champ eyes Oz
Southland’s Josh Burnett added yet another listing to his growing sporting CV when he won the New Zealand under-23 mountainbike title at the weekend. Jamie Searle reports.
Technology has enabled the training of a Dunedin-based mountainbike rider to be monitored by his coach in Invercargill.
Josh Burnett usually heads into the hills around Dunedin at 7am most mornings, clocking up important training before studying at Otago University. His training bikes are set up to record different types of data, including power and elevation.
Pressure plates on the pedals measure the power/energy he is putting into training. Elevation is the vertical climbing he does on hills. Burnett’s training is also done on roads and on a trainer indoors.
The monitoring of his heart rate during training sessions also provided valuable information, coach Matt Randall said.
Randall has a heap of cycling/ biking knowledge, having won bronze in the 4000m team pursuit at the Commonwealth Games in Manchester, England, in 2002. Two years later he rode for New Zealand at the Olympic Games in Athens. His training programmes have helped to turn Burnett into one of New Zealand’s exciting prospects in mountain biking.
Burnett, a former Southland Boys’ High School student, achieved his best success at the national championships in Rotorua last weekend. The 18-year-old won the under-23 section and he was the fourth to finish, beating home most of the elite grade riders. The under-23s and elite riders started together. Elite winner Anton Cooper is a two-time Commonwealth Games medallist.
‘‘I had a pretty good month of training leading in [to Rotorua] and I felt pretty confident,’’ Burnett said. ‘‘It was definitely my biggest win . . . I was pretty stoked.’’ His mother Angela was among spectators when he received his gold medal and national champion’s jersey – white with a black fern.
Burnett’s talent was seen last year when he finished second in the under-19 grade at the national championships and won at the New Zealand secondary schools’ championships.
‘‘Since the World Championships he’s got stronger . . . he’s an amazing trainer,’’ Randall said of Burnett.
Competing at the World Championships in Switzerland (September) and the Australian National Series at Canberra (March 2018) have been other memorable experiences for Burnett.
‘‘I’ve been to some pretty cool places,’’ he said.
Burnett is gearing up for his next target, the Oceania Championships at Bright in Victoria on April 8-10.
Before taking up mountainbiking three years ago, Burnett competed in BMX for 10 years.
‘It was definitely my biggest win . . . I was pretty stoked.’ Josh Burnett