What an event we had in Malaysia again last weekend! The Borneo Ultra Trail Marathon (BUTM) in Kiulu, Sabah, made its debut on the Asia Trail Master Championship calendar with a big bang, and offered drama, spectacular finishes, new faces and turbulent weather that made especially the 100 km a very tough challenge for all runners. During that 100 km, it became clear pretty quickly that Sabah’s new star Wilsen Singgin did not have the same legs as he did at MMTF last December. Blisters would make matters even more complicated and he never really featured for the podium. Fourth was the best he could hope for, but he would finish three hours behind the eventual winner. That winner was not the runner who crossed the line first. After an amazing dual reminiscent of pre-pandemic TMBT 2019, Hisashi Kitamura managed to come back and drop home favourite Milton Amat in the final kilometres. His excitement was short-lived, however, as the mandatory gear check - which is always conducted after the finish at BUTM and TMBT - revealed the Karate Kit missed his blinker, which cost him a time penalty of 1 hour. Moreover, a 30-minute time penalty was already looming for him ever since he missed - not deliberately - checkpoint 3 during the early stages of the race. The race jury therefore awarded the victory to Milton Amat and relegated Kitamura to third place, even behind good old Daved SImpat, who managed to stay within one hour of the leading duo. Despite the disappointment of missing out on a big victory in Sabah, Team Uglow’s Hisashi KItamura took the penalty with dignity. “I must have lost my blinker when I had a big fall halfway in the race, and I did not realise it,” he said. “Nevertheless I m very happy with my performance today on a very technical course and with Milton as a fantastic competitor!” Milton Amat returned the compliment on his facebook page by stating that Hisashi “beat him on the course today”. Milton officially completed the 106 km in 13 hours and 16 minutes. The number 5 in the result list, Aqmal Adzmi, not exactly a snail himself, finished over five hours later….

We knew from his strava exploits that Milton Amat, although no longer the youngest elite runner in the field, was in superb shape. Kitamura did not look the part at MMTF three months ago, but has managed to get back to his best form now the ATM season has gotten underway. We look forward to many more spectacular duals between the numbers 2 and 3 of the 2019 ATM Championship behind John Ellis.

The first woman of BUTM 100 was an interesting new face on the ATM scene in the person of Sally Yap. Hailing from Kuching in Sarawak, south of Brunei and Sabah, Sally Yap was in the lead for most of the race and arrived in just under 23 hours in the company of Japan’s Seiji Morofuji, who is more than a decent benchmark performance-wise. Yap was indeed three-and-a-half hours ahead of number 2, Aslin Sarawi. Siti Hajar Razali completed the women’s podium shortly afterwards. Pre-race favourite Adelinah Lintanga was a DNF around half distance.

The 50 km race category was also a points race for the ATM Championship, as we usually have in the early season. The specialists of the medium distance grabbed the opportunity to deliver a spectacle that was pure promotion for the sport. Local star Safrey Sumping could not shake off the tough Mohamed Affindi - winner of Tahura Trail in Indonesia in 2019 - during the race and both ended up sprinting full gaz and side-by-side to the finish! That does not happen very often in trail running and unsurprisingly there was no line on the ground to mark the actual finish. Deciding who came first was next to impossible and so both runners got announced as joint winners of the race. The fight for the third spot on the podium was equally tense. Moo Sat narrowly held off Marius Mousin to claim it. Amir Zaki was fifth and Jeffery Budin sixth. All big names in Malaysian trail running.

The women’s 50km was a very tight affair as well. Britain’s Amy Bartlett arrived first with just a minute advantage over SIngapore Deborah Lim. Halimatun Saadiah took third just over ten minutes later. Jess Lintanga settled for 21st place. Prior to the start she told our reporter that her training has only just begun again after nearly two years of focus on developing her now successful ethnic bracelet business.

Watch our facebook page for numerous video clips of the BUTM event, including interviews with the protagonists, courtesy of our ATM reporter on-site Mark Jinmin.

BUTM: Kitamura penalised, Milton Amat scores first blood!