The 10th anniversary edition of The Punisher on Samal island, just off the coast of Davao City in Mindanao, Philippines, had a fantastic competitive field as the last points race of Season 9 in our ATM Championship. Several runners required points or had to defend their ranking against others to ensure qualification for the Championship Final in Malaysia next month. As was to be expected, there was both joy and drama at the finish of the 50 miles or 80km race!

Starting with the women, Angelie Cabalo proved once more that she is arguably the fastest trail runner in her country at present. Sadly enough for her, even a second back-to-back victory after Bali Ultra 80 a week ago did not give her a top five spot in the Filipino ATM ranking. Cabalo only competed in three races this season, and in a country with so many competitive runners that proved to be insufficient, despite two wins and one second place. The ranking is based on a ‘best-of-four’ system and her compatriots all ran at least four races this season. Cabalo will have to wait and see if any of the five qualifiers cannot make the trip to Borneo TMBT. These five are Julieann Morales, Shally Yuson, Cristine Montuya, the surprising Irish Glorioso and Mary Joy Sumanda. Also Ann Jilian Pulanco dropped out of the top five, finishing “only” 9th last weekend. That was right behind Sumanda, who had been running strongly in second place most of the day but then was shown the wrong direction by a marshal. A classic, which shows again that one should not blindly follow marshals as many are just volunteers with no knowledge of the actual route -even if they should have. Sumanda was convinced she failed to qualify for team Pilipinas as a consequence, but alas her trip to KAR Ultra and the 50-point abroad bonus she got for that saved her. Irish Glorioso has had a remarkable boost in competitive form over the past 2-3 months and that results in her third consecutive qualification for Team Pilipinas. That in itself is unique for her country. Glorioso was one of three protagonist women who missed the start at 3am by half an hour. The other two were Morales and Manilyn Mamugay. The latter threw in the towel around halfway, Morales still managed to get fourth, just ahead of Glorioso. Ahead of them was the duo of Shally Yuson and Cristine Montoya, finishing together without pushing too hard - Cabalo was too far ahead anyway. Cabalo in fact finished fourth overall alongside Jomarc Ferrer.

Jomarc Ferrer turned out to be one of the great positive surprises of the day, in fact. Keeping up as well as he could with the trio of Jevie Cagatin, Kik Suello and Eldy Bulod, Ferrer had an outside chance of sneaking into the men’s ranking top five, and thus Team Pilipinas, and he took it. Of course, he did not have it in his own hands, but he did what he have to and as it turned out, Maynard Encornal had a complete off-day finishing just 18th. With Florence Alave not running as he cannot make it to TMBT anyway for family reasons, Ferrer entered the top five and is in the team! That came also at the expense of Sean Aying. The Grandmaster ran a great Punisher race himself, finishing in sixth, but his other results of the season were not always of the same level. Jevie Cagatin, Kik Suello and also the very young Mt Apo winner Isaiah Paraiso overtook Aying on points last weekend. Paraiso coming in fifth, Cagatin third and Suello a joint winner with Eldy Bulod. The duo dropped Cagatin in the final 9km and decided not to sprint for victory. Bulod plays no role in the championship “play-off” , as the Punisher was just his second ATM points race of the season. Note, however, that the young and upcoming Bulod stated he will aim for it next year. He also admitted that Suello was arguably the faster of them, in line with what insiders said during the race. Suello is a dark horse for TMBT. So is Cagatin, who finishes the season as number 1 in the Filipino points ranking.

Also Jeremy Ritcey (8th, Hong Kong) and Risa Kamiya (6th, Japan) ensured their qualification for their teams in the ATM Championship Final next month.

10th Punisher: Cabalo back-to-back win, while Suello and Bulod show their skills