Rotorua swimmer David Boles pushed national 10km Open Water Swim champion Matt Scott all the way at the 3.5km Legend of the Lake swim at Tikitapu (Blue Lake) yesterday.
Scott said Boles had been on his hip the whole race, and even changed his course on the final leg to try and shake off the 16-year-old. He managed it, coming home 12 seconds in front of the Rotorua swimmer.
"Especially in a wetsuit, if you're trying to drop someone, it's quite hard if you're swimming," said Scott. "So I saw him swim the other way and I thought I'd take a bit of a wider loop and it worked out."
Boles, who had come third in the opening round of the Ocean Swim series, the Sand to Surf at Mount Maunganui last month, said he had a good race from the start.
"He just got away at the end," he said.
Little wind with overcast skies meant good conditions for the swim with little chop on the surface.
"The conditions were great," said Boles, "although the visibility wasn't as good as it could have been - it was a bit cloudy."
The Legend of the Lake was the fourth round of the Ocean Swim series.
"I couldn't have asked for any better [conditions]," said Scott, who has won three rounds of this summer series, although that wasn't a specific target at the beginning.
With the series now moving on the Christchurch before returning to the North Island for the Bay of Islands Classic in Paihia and King of the Bays in Auckland, Boles is unsure if he will make it to any other swims in the series as his focus turns to the New Zealand age group championships in Wellington next month.
"It's good to be able to represent Rotorua and just get out there and have a good time," he said.
Jackson Dawson was third in the men's race.
The women's race was won, as it was last year at the inaugural event, by Dunedin's Stefannie Gillespie.
"I realised about halfway through that I was the defending champion from last year - I'd only just remembered," she said.
"I just thought, try to keep going, I got on to a pack of boys and just tried to hang on to them as long as I could."
Swimming with others works in a similar way to drafting in cycling.
"It makes a big difference and you have someone to push you along as well. If you're out there on your own, you kind of get into a bit of a rhythm, but if there's someone right beside you or right behind you, you know you've got to push a bit harder."
Sammy Winward and Claudia Ashby were second and third respectively in the women's race. Gillespie plans to take part in all of the remaining three swims in the series.
