Karori runner looks to emulate stellar year

By Frank Neill

When Karori athlete Daniel Jones lines up for the 2023 UTMB Tarawera Ultramarathon this month, he will be looking to emulate his outstanding 2022 performances.

Daniel had a year to remember in 2022, winning the Auckland Marathon, the Queenstown Marathon and two Kepler Challenges.

When he won the Auckland marathon in a time of 2 hours 21 minutes 52 seconds on 30 October, Daniel made it three successive victories in the event.

He followed that up by winning the Queenstown marathon on 20 November, cruising home in a time of 2 hours 26 minutes and 30 seconds.

Daniel also cruised to victory in his next race, the Kepler Challenge 60km mountain race in Fiordland on 9 December. He finished almost 30 minutes ahead of the second placed runner.

That gave him five wins in the Kepler Challenge and Daniel sits within one first placing to equal the record haul for Kepler victories.

When he won the Kawerau King of the Mountain race in 2017, Daniel made history. It was the first time a father and son had won the race as Daniel’s father Neil Jones was a two-time winner in the 1990s.

Daniel’s main goal this year is to qualify for the prestigious Western States 100-Mile Endurance Race (WSER) in California. He can do this by finishing in the top two in the Tarawera Ultramarathon.

After being cancelled last year because of Covid-19 restrictions, the Tarawera Ultramarathon by UTMB returns to the trails of Rotorua on 11 and 12 February.

The 2023 event will be the biggest Tarawera Ultramarathon to date.

A record number of nearly 5,000 participants will line up across four distances – 21km, 50km, 102km and 100miles (165km).

Daniel, who runs for Scottish Harriers, will compete in the 102km category. His main rival in the event will be United States runner Hayden Hawks.

A training partner to Daniel Jones while he has been in New Zealand, Hayden is a prominent athlete in the world of trail running having claimed major titles across Europe and the United States.

In 2022 he won the 100km race at Ultra-Trail Kosciuszko and won the 100km race at the European Running Festival in Poland. He’s also a previous winner of the 100km event at UTMB Mont-Blanc.

The Tarawera Ultramarathon is the largest trail event New Zealand has ever hosted and one of the biggest globally.

It is the first event of the year in the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB) World Series, a circuit of the best trail running events in the world, offering runners the only opportunity to begin their quest to UTMB Mont-Blanc – the holy grail of the trail running world held in Chamonix, France every August.