Cross country winner shows champion spirit | Canterbury Sport | Surfing, Rugby, Soccer, Football, Cricket in Canterbury

Christchurch's world schools cross-country winner Margot Gibson is a great little champ in every respect.

The 15-year-old St Margarets College girl scored a stunning win in the championships in Slovakia last month.

And she didn't blob out when she got home from Europe yesterday. A few hours after arriving, she was along to her old school Fendalton Primary to help out at its cross-country championships and present the prizes.

That's the sort of spirit that has made her world championship victory doubly pleasing for the local athletics community.

The slender youngster also showed her character by shrugging off problems before the world championship.

She was meant to have flown from London to Vienna and would have had two days to prepare for the worlds.

But because of the wholesale airline dislocations she had to make a 27-hour bus trip through six countries instead.

"I got to sleep on the bus," she said. "But it probably wasn't ideal."

Gibson pipped another Kiwi, Rebekah Greene, of Dunedin, for the world title by just 0.37sec in Slovakia.

"Basically I was looking for a top 15 or top 10 finish!" she said.

The 3.4km race had two laps.

"I wanted to stick with the front group for as long as I could and see how it went," she said.

"I was in the middle of the lead group most of the first lap and during the second me and Rebekah moved to the front and started picking up the pace, and got a break on a quite big hill two-thirds of the way through the lap."

Gibson's potential was identified at Fendalton Primary by coach Paul Norton, one of Christchurch's keenest sports enthusiasts, who spotted her in a duathlon.

A track 1500m specialist in the summer, she's been coached by Norton at the Christchurch-Avon club and by Barry Magee, who won the bronze medal in the 1960 Olympic marathon in Rome.

A Lydiard protégé, Magee has coached her by email since she was 11.

"I email him every week with how I'm going, and he emails me back every week with his thoughts," she said.

"He gives me a programme every week."

He analyses any issues she has in her running or preparation and discusses things that have gone well or badly.

Email coaching "works really well for me," she said.

Gibson will not be able to defend her title. The worlds are held every two years, and she is also a precocious scholar.

Although she isn't 16 until next month, she is in the seventh form and is going to the University of Canterbury next year.

She hasn't decided what she'll study, but athletics - both cross-country and middle distance on the track - will remain an important part of her life.

"I want to keep on training well and stay fit and healthy, and I hope to represent New Zealand again in the future," she said.