PRESS RELEASE - ATM 500 embraces the continent

This Monday at 4 am, more than 900 runners from all over Asia will commence their ATM 500 Virtual Team Run. A challenge in teams of four runners with the objective of completing the distance of 500 km within a timeframe of 14 days. Created by Karen Geh and KC Tan from Sportlicious Malaysia in Penang, the concept was further fine-tuned by Asia Trail Master, which has attached its brand name to assist in the promotion and the covering of the unique event that has taken the Asian trail running community by storm over the last week. Asia Trail Master is an annual points-based championship series in trail running with 30 races a year in 14 to 15 Asian countries.

For the upcoming Virtual Team Run, teams of four must include at least one woman and each team member is required to run minimum 75 km over the two-week-period. Each day by 10:30 pm, the team captains are required to send in their team's performance for validation. Due to nighttime curfews in several Asian cities or countries, the regulation says that valid runs must be done between 4 am and 10 pm. The organisers emphasize strongly that they do not want any runner to break local covid-19 regulations. Upon registration, teams could choose their own team name, posters with an event overlay were produced and went viral on social media. The snowball effect it triggered left even the organisers astonished.

“We had no idea this initiative would lead to such a continent-wide enthusiasm and it has caused an enormous amount of overtime work,” laughs Kris Van de Velde, founder and general manager of the Asia Trail Master Championship series. “It proves how much runners miss the events that have all been postponed or cancelled due to the covid 19 pandemic. The core idea of ATM 500 is to stimulate people to keep exercising and remain conscious of their physical and mental health, after we heard of several runners-in-lockdown letting themselves go and engaging in tv binge watching with all its tricky side-habits of consuming too many unhealthy snacks and beers. That is also the reason why the focus of our team challenge is on distance rather than on speed. People will motivate each other every day to move and increase the total mileage of the team. Of course, elite-level runners need to nurture their competitive spirit as well in these months without racing, and for sure some ‘elite teams’ will aim to win by completing the 500k as a team in just a couple of days."

Plenty of Asia’s finest have indeed signed up for the special occasion, including reigning Asia Trail Master champions John Ellis and Veronika Vadovicova, as well as former champions Alessandro Sherpa, Manolito Divina and Arief Wismoyono. Other household names we find in team rosters, are a.o. Jeff Campbell, Yuri Norimatsu, Fredelyn Alberto, Estzer Csillag, Quang Tran, Kristian Joergensen, Rie Sugaya, Milton Amat, Tomohiro Mizukoshi and Mohamed Affindi.

Not all elites will be gunning for victory, though. Milton Amat, winner of Borneo TMBT Ultra 100 and Mantra Summits Challenge and the best Sabahan runner in the ATM Championship for the last two years, loves the general concept and will take up the 500k challenge together with his young son Rheo, his sister Egnes and uncle Lukas as a ‘family team’.

On Sunday night, 230 teams had officially entered already. Registered teams come from all over Asia and even Spain. Kalimantan (Indonesia) and Cambodia have three teams each - despite having no history in the Asia Trail Master series.

Updates on the event’s proceedings will be released on the websites and social media channels of Asia Trail Master and Sportlicious Malaysia.