Tahura Trail attracts top dogs for ATM season opener!

This Saturday Tahura Trail kicks off the 6th edition of the Asia Trail Master Championship series. The traditional season opener in Bandung, Indonesia, has smashed its own record and attracted well over 3000 participants including several elite runners from the Asian region for the 8th edition of the country’s biggest trail event in terms of participant numbers. The 42km long trail marathon remains the main race category on which finishers will collect their first ATM Championship points of 2020.

While several event organisers every year feel a need to increase the distance of their longest race, Agung Adijani of IBA stays with 42km ‘because the course works’. For sure it does. Tahura Trail has a bit of everything you can expect of a trail running course. While it is shorter than most, the 1800 hm of elevation will make itself felt and the technical sections are challenging for each participant. While the weather gods treated the runners well in the past two years, rainfall in Bandung can always turn Tahura into a bit of a mudfest as well. As such, nothing is a given in this race and even the fastest legs sometimes get beaten by those with more overall strength and technical skill. Last year’s winner Mohamed Affindi is a prime example of that when he had the better of the theoretically quicker runners Pablo Diago Gonzales and Tomohiro Mizukoshi.

Malaysia’s Affindi is returning to Bandung this weekend in an attempt to repeat last year’s performance and kickstart his 2020 ATM campaign. Work commitments in the army prevented him from living up to his full potential for most of last season, but according to his team Malatra manager Razif Yahya he will have more opportunities for focused training and racing in the coming months. While Singapore-based Spaniard Pablo Diago Gonzales will be one Affindi’s biggest rivals again this Saturday, arguably the top favourite is 2018 winner Jeff Campbell.

The Canadian from Hong Kong, running for our preferred retail store partner Gone Running-Joint Dynamics, is indeed coming back to Tahura Trail and with more than just this one ATM race in mind. Inspired by John Ellis and perhaps even more by Veronika Vadovicova, Campbell has stated he wants to give the championship a go. The Slovakian phenomenon proved that you don’t need to win a series of 100k races to get the points needed to claim the ATM title at the end of the season. Her longest race in 2019 was the last one in Taiping: 84 km. By exploiting his experience of two years ago Campbell is looking for the best possible start of his championship campaign. He won’t get the victory presented on a silver platter, though. Aside from the aforementioned contenders Affindi and Diago Gonzales, Campbell will need to deal also with Alessandro Sherpa, Hisashi Kitamura and the motivated local hero Yusuf Aprian. Together with Margono, Sherpa was the one pushing Campbell forward in this race two seasons ago and is arguably now in better shape than then. Karate Kit is making his debut in Bandung and we know his amazing speed on the medium distance. In the case of the Uglow Asia leader we need to wait and see how well he has recovered from a very long and tough 2019 season, in which he of course finished as runner-up to Ellis in the ATM Championship. Yusuf Aprian is still the youngest of all the known podium contenders and is keen to improve his performance once again. Aprian is part of the famous Bandung Explorer Team of Arief Wismoyono and Ruth Theresia and reportedly wants to give the ATM Championship a go this season. As such he may become a favourite for the new and soon-to-be-introduced T8 Trophy for the ‘Best Youth Runner’ in the 2020 Asia Trail Master Championship series.

Other potential podium contenders in the men’s race are the inevitable Rudi Iskandar, Stephen Dundon and Aris Sopiandi Muklis (the 2019 Indonesia Trail Master). The beauty of the season opening race is of course that we may always discover new names…. such as Asuka Nakajima last year.

Asuka Nakajima burst onto the ATM Scene by winning Tahura Trail ahead of Sri Wahyuni. This weekend, however, both runners are not on the start list. The women’s 42k race could become a race between two Asia-based French ladies: Charlotte Taquet and Josephin Anselin, and local hero Ruth Theresia. The latter’s participation in the 42k is still a bit in doubt given her busy racing schedule coming up with also the 9 Dragons in Hong Kong and the EcoTrail Al Ula in Saudi Arabia as targets for her new ATM campaign. In the last two years, Ruth has indeed used the 21K B-race at Tahura as a speed test and may opt to do that again. On paper, though, a podium on the 42k should be a given. Josephin Anselin is based in Jakarta and known as a very fast marathon runner, but she has been out of racing for a long time due to persistent injury that plagued her last year. If Anselin is fit, she could be the measure of things although her relative lack of experience in trail may boost the chances of Theresia and of Charlotte Taquet. Keen ATM fans may remember that name from the 9 Dragons last year. Indeed, she won the 50km. That was not a points race then (this year it is!), but note that Taquet beat none other than Kim Matthews and Sandi Menchi that day! Running for the T8 Team of John Ellis, Taquet has been put forward as a challenger for the women’s ATM Championship. As usual, ATM will be reporting LIVE from the events also this season via our facebook page and instagram primarily. The 42k race coverage at Tahura begins on Saturday early morning around 6 am.

Mohamed Affindi on the way to victory at Tahura last year

Jeff Campbell returns to Bandung after winning here two years ago

Yusuf Aprian is Indonesia’s young hope for competitive trail running

There’s always a great festive vibe at the first event of the new ATM season!