Honours were shared in the elite racing with New Zealand’s Paris Olympian, Sammie Maxwell, dominating the women’s race to defend her title.
Fox became only the second person in 10 years to win the elite men’s title, Anton Cooper winning every other edition since 2016.
The pair were closely matched early with Cooper pushing out to a 30sec lead after three of seven laps before a flat tyre proved costly.
After limping back to service, the Lapierre Racing Unity professional found himself well down on the Australian and was unable to recover the time.
Fox finished just shy of a minute clear to add the elite crown to his Australian national honours last week.
Cooper was second for his 12th consecutive Oceania medal since 2013, and Rotorua’s Sam Shaw finished third.
It continues a rewarding time for Fox, who has recently finished as a fulltime professional and is mixing work with racing.
"It has been a busy couple of weeks. I finished up our national titles in some pretty torrential conditions and back to work with Cycleways in Christchurch, so I didn’t get to touch the bike until course recon yesterday," he said.
"The fun-is-fast adage is really paying off. I had a lot of momentum from the last year of training professionally and kind of carrying that through with less volume.
"Obviously, that momentum will drop off as the training volume does as well but riding the wave for now."
Maxwell confirmed her status as Oceania’s top female cross-country rider with another dominant display.
The former under-23 world champion opened a 90sec lead early and powered away from the field to claim the title by nearly 15 minutes from her closest competitor, Zoe Cuthbert (Australia). Fellow Kiwi Mary Gray completed the podium.
"It’s such a brutal course, and if you can’t quite get up the climbs, the lap times get way slower, so I knew it was going to be a matter of keeping within my limits for the first bit of the race," Maxwell said.
In under-23 events, Ethan Rose (New Zealand) made it two in a row and Kiwi Marie Laurie claimed the women’s honours.
Rose, the Trek Future Racing professional, and Australian Harry Doye were locked together for two laps until the Australian pushed clear. Rose upped the pace to reclaim the lead and from that point he dominated, going on to claim the title by more than 3min.
After finishing second last year, Christchurch rider Laurie claimed her first under 23 Oceania title to add to her under-19 crown from two years ago. Laurie, who won the first round of the recent Continental Series, was in a league of her own, finishing well clear of Ella Menigoz (Australia) and Kiwi Amelie Mackay.
The under-19 titles went to Australia’s Connor Wright and New Zealand’s Kayley McMillan.
Cross-country short-track and downhill racing was yesterday. — APL
