ATM Championship Final on 17 December!

The Asia Trail Master season traditionally ends in the middle of December with the ‘Final’, the event that typically crowns the new champions. This year the date has been confirmed for the same weekend since 2019, and more specifically on Saturday, 17 December. The venue is different and will be formally announced in May, and we promise it will be a cracker!

The Malaysia Mountain Trail Festival hosted the ATM Championship Final in 2019 and the Malaysia Trail Master Championship last year in fantastic style, but has been compelled to move its event date forward to November from this year onwards. That left the door open for new applicants and new destinations to invite the best points scorers of the season to compete directly against each other in the ATM Final.

A new venue for the ATM Championship ‘new style’. As previously announced, runners will no longer be crowned champion on the basis of their points total at the end of the season, but by winning the final race. Winner-takes-all. Of course, points accumulated during the year remain very important, because runners need to qualify to be allowed entry into the ATM Final. To qualify, they need to be ranked in the top 3, 4 or 5 of their country before the final event. Those elite few will constitute their country’s ‘national’ team for the final race. Indeed, as of 2022, we will not only have individual ATM Champions, but also a country team champion! The number of runners in each country team depends on the number of ATM-promoted events in that country. The minimum is six (3 men, 3 women), the maximum is ten (5 men, 5 women). For non-Asians living and working in Asia, there will be a Team Asia Expat. More details can be found on http://www.asiatrailmaster.com/2022-atm-points-system

Four events have already taken place, two of which even had two points races, so quite a few runners have already made it into the ATM Championship ranking. Follow the progress and filter by nationality on this website: https://m.racetimingsolutions.com/rankings/2022

It is going to be another big party to celebrate what now looks to become the first full trail running season since the covid crisis. A celebration of Asian trail runners and trail running in Asia in general!

Stay tuned for all details coming in May!