Robbie White first crossed *The Full Send’s radar following dispatches from Xterra Wellington in early March. The global trail tri brand was quick to claim the Taranaki 21-year-old as a “rising star in the off-road scene” after he finished second, just 39 sec behind decorated Xterra Kiwi Sam Osborne at Mackay’s Crossing in Raumati.
Fast forward to last Saturday’s XTERRA Rotorua Festiva and that proclamation had even more credence with White sensationally upsetting five-time champion Osborne on the local hero’s home Blue Lake/ Whakarewarewa Forest trails. The exciting news is NZ’s U23 road tri stocks also look to have been bolstered by the rise of the Canterbury University student.
White and coach Chris Willett were quietly targeting a decent nudge at the 2026 U23 World Championships but may bring that plan forward to October’s equivalent at the World Triathlon finals in Wollongong if he can transfer his trail success to on road results.
There’s a good chance White will race next month’s Oceania Super Sprint Championships at Runaway Bay on the Gold Coast and perhaps target races in Asia to fast-track his ambitions. He made his international debut at the continental sprint champs late last month, finishing 18th in the elite men’s race. However, water quality issues and jellyfish turned the Mooloolaba tri into a duathlon and denied him a chance to show his swim.
“Rotorua is just one of the sickest XTERRA courses in the world, I reckon…great trails.”
There were no such issues in Rotorua with White right on the tail of Lachlan Haycock, Austin Carter and Ivan Abele out of Blue Lake. He then produced the third fastest bike split behind Xterra World Cupper and reigning World Triathlon Cross Tri champion Michele Bonacina (ITA) and Osborne, and was bettered only by 2023 Rotorua winner and known whippet Jack Moody on the run, 20:52 plays 21:10 for the 11km.
“It’s pretty cool,” White said of winning one of Xterra’s pre-eminent titles.
“If you look back at the names of who’s won, like, there’s some pretty cool names on there and some guys that are pretty big on the world stage, so it’d be cool to do that in the future, but, yeah, just one step at a time. I really like racing Xterra. It’s lots of fun.”
This is clearly a work in progress but you don’t foot it with distance athletes like Osborne and Moody and rising World Triathlon campaigners such as Sam Parry and Abele without having something about you.
“I’m doing mechanical engineering in my last year down there [Canty Uni] which is going really well. Not quite sure what I’ll do next year. Looking out for some jobs but would love to keep training and keep trying to go all in on triathlon.
“I’m just loving training at the moment and managing to fit it around the study as well, or fit the study around the training that is! I would love to go to World Champs at the end of this year but got to get a few more races under the belt. So that’ll be the goal for the next couple of months, I guess, try to get some [ranking] points.”
Sam Osborne on White:
“I knew he’d go out pretty hard on the run and I was just hoping like in Wellington that, in that second half, that he’d come back to me and he was coming back to me but unfortunately maybe five seconds not enough.
“I think Wellington probably would have given him a lot of confidence. I’d imagine he’s probably focusing on this, I think he’s looking at doing some overseas [racing], so yeah, these young guys, they improve really quickly and they learn quickly so I knew he’d throw something else at me.”
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