{"id":284801,"date":"2026-02-15T04:04:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T04:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/284801\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T04:04:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T04:04:08","slug":"tarawera-ultra-trail-ruth-croft-and-daniel-jones-defend-titles-on-sodden-track","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/284801\/","title":{"rendered":"Tarawera Ultra-Trail: Ruth Croft and Daniel Jones defend titles on sodden track"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIt felt like a very different race today just because of the conditions, but I actually really enjoyed it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 2025 Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc<\/a> winner said the \u201cchallenging\u201d conditions were \u201cway worse\u201d for volunteers than athletes, and all the support on the course was appreciated.<\/p>\n

Croft\u2019s close friend Fielder joked at the finish line: \u201cI\u2019m going to be trying to prise this trophy from Ruth\u2019s skeleton, I\u2019m sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whakat\u0101ne-raised Jones secured his fourth consecutive win in the ultra race, taking the tape in 7h 31.27s, more than 26 minutes ahead of American Jacob Banta.<\/p>\n

\"DanielDaniel Jones claims his fourth consecutive T102 title at the Tarawera Ultra-Trail by UTMB. Photo \/ Graeme Murray<\/p>\n

\u201cIt got super tough in the back end, the course was very muddy, but you know, you just keep digging in and making sure that you keep moving forward the best way possible,\u201d Jones said. <\/p>\n

\u201cGetting to the last 10km where it was flat was nice, and then the reception here, coming into the Village Green in Rotorua, that was special for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

As is tradition for T102 and TMiler champions, Jones and Croft were received at the finish line by a haka and cheers from the hundreds of spectators who lined the chute. <\/p>\n

Earlier on Saturday, New Zealand\u2019s Sam Macaulay and America\u2019s Robyn Lesh won the 50km titles, while British duo David Vernon and Katie Lowery won the 21km titles.<\/p>\n

Wet weekend<\/p>\n

Hourly rainfall totals in parts of the Bay of Plenty reached 30-40mm during the storm overnight Friday and on Saturday.<\/p>\n

MetService meteorologist John Law said these rates were recorded at stations in Te Puke, southeast of Tauranga, and south of Rotorua in Tahorakuri and Galatea.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor context, the February average rainfall for places like Tauranga is around 70mm all month.\u201d<\/p>\n

Law said the intense bursts of rainfall and thunderstorms resulted in several severe thunderstorm warnings being issued across the region during Saturday.<\/p>\n

Some residents in Rotorua\u2019s south also received emergency mobile alerts for a thunderstorm warning in Taup\u014d, but Bay of Plenty Civil Defence said on Facebook that these were designed for people in Waikato, with any crossover into Bay of Plenty being due to celltower locations.<\/p>\n

Parts of Waikato were hard hit by the storm, with K\u0101whia isolated, states of emergency declared for Waip\u0101 and \u014ctarahanga, and one man found dead inside a submerged car<\/a> on State Highway 39.<\/p>\n

Law said while the main focus of the heavy rain had moved away for the region, the weather system that helped generate the heavy rain remained close at hand and would bring some showers for the region this afternoon. <\/p>\n

Longer spells of rain were possible tonight for Taup\u014d and the south of Bay of Plenty.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe weather system, a deep area of low pressure off the eastern coast of the North Island will also bring strengthening winds for later today, especially for the likes of Taup\u014d and around the central plateau,\u201d Law said.<\/p>\n

As the winds turn west or northwesterly tonight, expect a windy night across Bay of Plenty as well, he said.<\/p>\n

Law said winds were set to ease as showers cleared in the morning on Monday.<\/p>\n

Rainfall totals from Friday through to midnight Saturday:<\/p>\n

Galatea, 97mmWhakat\u0101ne, 33mmRotorua, 88mmTaupo (airport), 51.8mm Tahorakuri, 154mmTauranga, 37mmTe Puke, 108.3mm<\/p>\n

Source: MetService<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt felt like a very different race today just because of the conditions, but I actually really enjoyed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284802,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[95,6625,18829,10806,99524,2176,111,139,69,90,7798,1327,6624,1534,147840,213,1077,158722,126755,165,21638,22974,6629,158723],"class_list":{"0":"post-284801","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-and","9":"tag-croft","10":"tag-daniel","11":"tag-defend","12":"tag-defended","13":"tag-jones","14":"tag-new-zealand","15":"tag-newzealand","16":"tag-nz","17":"tag-on","18":"tag-race","19":"tag-rotorua","20":"tag-ruth","21":"tag-saturday","22":"tag-sodden","23":"tag-sports","24":"tag-successfully","25":"tag-t102","26":"tag-tarawera","27":"tag-their","28":"tag-titles","29":"tag-track","30":"tag-ultratrail","31":"tag-utmb"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284801\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}