It was unexpected glory for Aaron Anderson at the Caledonian Ground on Saturday.
Anderson won the Ness Cup - the mile race which is run on a handicap system - and it was in a time which he did not expect.
Runners suggest a time they will run for the mile and then a handicapper looked at past performances and form before deciding on the staggered start.
About 15 runners lined up at the start on Saturday and Anderson was the fourth-last to leave. Nathan Hill started last.
Anderson (21) had nominated that he would run a 4min 46sec mile and ended up with a time of 4min 41.64sec.
His translated time was 6min 46.64sec while Rachael Turner, of Winton clocked 6min 48.16sec with William Scharpf third in a translated time of 6min, 49.72sec.
Nathan Hill ran the quickest mile in a time of 4min, 28.29sec, while Scharpf recorded a time of 4min, 34.72 sec.
Anderson, a fourth year information science student at the University of Otago, was surprised to win as he had not been training for a mile and did not expect to be in contention.
"I knew I was doing all right when I started picking up a lot of people in the second to last lap,'' he said.
"But I still looked to be a long way from the front and they were way out in front. But I passed more people with 250m left and there were two other people in front of me.
"William Scharpf was chasing me quite hard so I kept running and then hit the front with about 100m to go.''
Anderson said the hot weather seemed to help as he loved running in hot conditions and did not feel the heat.
The wind was not a factor and he credited some hard training in the past few weeks for other events to helping him get to the finishing line first.
