When everyone else was crashing around him he kept his concentration to win the elite men's mountain bike race in Dunedin on Saturday.
Cole again proved he has the temperament for the big occasion when he won the first race of the three-event South Island downhill series in 2min 46.21sec.
It was a close race, with Cole edging out fellow professional Kieran Bennett (Nelson), who clocked 2min 46.24sec on the difficult 2km track on Signal Hill.
James Dodds (Rotorua) was third in 2min 49.03sec.
Cole (20) started riding BMX bikes at the age of 4 and won three national junior titles before switching to mountain bikes eight years ago.
He proved his credentials in the international arena when he won the world junior downhill mountain bike title in Rotorua in 2006.
Cole is a hardened professional rider with the Maxi team in the United States, and his proficiency was evident in the way he handled the Signal Hill course.
The course brings out the best in Cole, who finished runner-up to French international Fabien Pedemanaud when the national series was held in Dunedin two years ago.
The track on Signal Hill was reformed after fire ravaged the forest 30 months ago.
It now contains tight technical turns and jumps and a tricky rockery section at the top.
That was where Cole's Christchurch flatmate, Justin Leov (24), came to grief when he punctured, which put him out of contention for the title.
Leov (24) was ranked fifth in the world after his World Cup series last year.
It was the highest ranking achieved by a New Zealand male downhill rider.
He also came sixth at the world championships in Italy.
Leov was the hot favourite before the Dunedin event, and he rode the fastest time of the day with his heat time of 2min 46.14sec.
Cole had doubts after completing the top section of the course.
"I hit a tree at the top and lost time," he said.
"I felt I was pretty slow through the top and thought I'd blown it. I pedalled hard down the rest of the course and just made it. But everyone else had worse runs and caught ruts and roots and got pushed off line more than I did."
Cole is nifty on the pedals, which showed in the way he negotiated the tight turns, rocky parts, tricky jumps and long drops on the course.
Bennett (21) has been signed by the X-Fusion team and this year will be his first in the professional ranks.
He was the Oceania champion last year and finished 13th at the world championships in Italy.
The best Otago performance was from Matt Scoles (Alexandra), who finished fifth in 2min 49.51sec.
He was third at the world junior championships in 2007.
Tim Mackersy (Dunedin) was 14th in 2min 53.73sec.
The women's elite event was dominated by the internationals.
Emmeline Ragot (France) won in 3min 10.46sec and was followed home by Harriet Harper (Blenheim) in 3min 24.33sec and Harriet Ruecknagel (Germany) in 3min 36.81sec.
Ragot (22), a physiotherapy student from Bordeaux, was third at the world championships in Italy.
She won world junior titles in 2002 and 2003.
Harper (27) started mountain biking when she was a medical student at the University of Otago, and finished 11th at a World Cup in Quebec last year.
Otago competitors to reach the podium were: Antony Jackson (Dunedin), senior men, second (3min 00.30sec); Jeremy Fourlong (Dunedin), masters men 1, first (3min 06.93sec); Tim Ceci (Queenstown), masters men 1, third (3min 13.86sec); Murray Stark (Dunedin), masters men 2, first (3min 51.97sec); Tom Burns (Warrington), boys under 15, second (3min 21.30sec); Josh McCombie (Dunedin), under 15 boys (3min 26.90sec).
