Mount Maunganui College head boy Sam Durrant won Sunday's New Zealand Secondary Schools Multisport Championships in Rotorua.

Sam competed in the 25km Grassroots Challenge, which was part of the Expand-A-Sign 3D Multisport Festival. The challenge consisted of 6km kayak, 15km mountain bike and 6km run around Lake Okareka and through the Whakarewarewa Forest.

File photo.

The 17-year-old, who was third in his age group at the national sprint triathlon championship in Kinloch earlier this year, had a lot of ground to make up after finishing the kayak in 21st place, nearly seven minutes behind the leaders.

'I didn't think I was capable of winning it after that kayak – I was kind of aiming for top five at that stage – but I pushed pretty hard on the bike and came off as second male, which was a big surprise,” Sam says.

'I've had a bit of mountain biking experience and that was definitely the leg where you could make up a lot of time, but I still needed to work hard on the run.”

His 42min 21sec mountain bike leg was the fastest of the day. He also posted the third fastest run time.

Finishing with a total time of 1:36:08, Sam beat the next fastest competitor by more than two and a half minutes.