{"id":326800,"date":"2026-03-13T00:27:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T00:27:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/326800\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T00:27:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T00:27:07","slug":"jenna-hastings-and-tuhoto-ariki-pene-defend-national-downhill-titles-in-rotorua","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/326800\/","title":{"rendered":"Jenna Hastings and Tuhoto-Ariki Pene defend national downhill titles in Rotorua"},"content":{"rendered":"

He suffered a costly slide near the top of the course and was unable to recover the lost time, ultimately finishing mid-pack. <\/p>\n

\" Jenna Hastings during Thursday’s Specialized K\u0101rearea Downhill seeding run and National Downhill Championships Skyline Rotorua during Crankworx Rotorua. Photo \/ Clint Trahan<\/p>\n

Hastings proved why she\u2019s the rider to beat on Rotorua dirt by securing the top seeding position for Saturday\u2019s K\u0101rearea Downhill and defending her National Downhill Championship title. <\/p>\n

She was the final rider down the course, winning in 3:18.288 to finish four seconds ahead of Auckland\u2019s Trek Factory Racing professional Sacha Earnest, who finished top-10 on the elite UCI world series last year.<\/p>\n

With the fastest line down the demanding Rotorua course, Hastings will be the final rider to drop in during Saturday\u2019s finals.<\/p>\n

Pene delivered a strong run to stop the clock at 2:59.953, securing the prestigious national sleeve once again, while Australian Luke Meier-Smith earned the top seed for the K\u0101rearea Downhill with a time of 2:55.659. <\/p>\n

\" Tuhoto Ariki-Pene during Thursday’s Specialized K\u0101rearea Downhill seeding run and National Downhill Championships Skyline Rotorua during Crankworx Rotorua. Photo \/ Clint Trahan<\/p>\n

Pene said the win was special and even better to achieve at the event and in Rotorua.<\/p>\n

Crankworx Rotorua continues today with the Rotorua Pump Track Challenge under lights at Skyline Rotorua, while tomorrow brings the Specialized K\u0101rearea Downhill Finals and Rotorua Roulette event. <\/p>\n

The festival concludes on Sunday with Slopestyle in Memory of McGazza and Crankworx Rotorua Dual Slalom. <\/p>\n

National Downhill Championship results<\/p>\n

Elite women: Jenna Hastings (Rotorua) 3:18.288, 1; Sacha Earnest at 4.212, 2; Kate Hastings at 5.154, 3; Indy Deavoll at 15.503, 4; Bellah Birchall at 16.602, 5.<\/p>\n

Under-19: Indy Deavoll (Queenstown) 3:33.791, 1; Ursula Summers (Rotorua) 3:35.971, 2; Millie Waite (Havelock North) 4:09.112, 3.<\/p>\n

Elite men: Tuhoto-Ariki Pene 2:59.953, 1; Oli Clark at 0.037s, 2; Tyler Waite at 0.845, 3; James Macdermid at 1.143, 4; Jonty Williamson at 3.588, 5.<\/p>\n

Under-19: Jonty Williamson (Yeti-Fox, Palmerston North) 3:03.541, 1; Dexter Lock (Taranaki) 3:04.493, 2; Seppy Binsbergen (Taranaki) 3:05.112, 3.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He suffered a costly slide near the top of the course and was unable to recover the lost…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":326801,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[95,1070,3246,10806,99524,33236,33231,5194,42,1345,78,13453,21524,3556,43,162599,1327,38715,1077,165,21638,40,38,41,39,175981,9616,11587],"class_list":["post-326800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-and","tag-bike","tag-both","tag-defend","tag-defended","tag-downhill","tag-elite","tag-hastings","tag-headlines","tag-home","tag-in","tag-jenna","tag-mountain","tag-national","tag-news","tag-pene","tag-rotorua","tag-rotoruas","tag-successfully","tag-their","tag-titles","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-tuhotoariki","tag-turf","tag-yesterday"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326800","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=326800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326800\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/326801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}