We are happy to announce Perak Ultra in the famous Lenggong Valley as the next official ATM Candidate Race in Malaysia on the weekend of 3/4 September. This will be the first ever Ultra event in Lenggong Valley, known as a UNESCO World Heritage Site for past 10 years, and also as National Geo Park Site. The trail routes will go through magnificient places such as caves, durian orchards, deer farm, the Raban Lake and many more. Organised by the Comrades, who also bring you a.o. The Great Malaya Trail, Perak Ultra will offer several race categories. Flagship category is the 100K, which will have minimum 70% of offroad - the requirement to join ATM. There’s also 50k, 30k and 20k races but note these have at least 50% of road in them.

Registrations as usual go via Checkpoint Spot: https://checkpointspot.asia/event/perak-ultra . The race pack collection will be here: Dewan Tasik Raban Resort, Lenggong, Perak

The Longgeng Valley (photo from Perak Ultra facebook)

A special webpage has been set up for the Mount Apo Sky Race in Philippines as the 2022 Asia Trail Master Championship Final. All news, race details and other information on the Championship race, the national teams and their runners will be made available there. Just click on the poster logo below to access and bookmark it for quick access in the coming months.

Vertical 2 Sky, event organiser in Davao, has also updated its own website including all details of the open public races of 100km and 50km, which will open for registration on 1 September.

The Mt Apo Sky Race will take place on 16-18 December with the ATM Championship races for men and women starting separately as of 4 am on Saturday.

The second ATM Candidate Race of the weekend takes place in Bali, Indonesia. It’s the Bali Ultra Trail, an inaugural event originally scheduled to take place in 2020, but then postponed until now due to covid. The event mimicks somewhat the BTR Challenge from earlier in the year with a loop on and around the popular volcano Gunung Batur, but extends it with an out-and-back to the beach in North Bali to produce an ultra distance of 80km. The event, directed by ATM Grandmaster Dendi Dwitiandi, has been able to attract several of Indonesia’s star trail runners, such as Arief Wismoyono, Taofik Hidayat, Thimo Kilberth and Shindy Patricia. These are all spread out over 3 categories, however, with Thimo and Pablo Diago Gonzales, for example, opting for the 25K race on Sunday morning. On the longest 80k, Wismoyono is the top favourite, but there’s also Fandhi Achmad, Dzaki Wardana and Rachmat Septiyanto. On the 50K, all eyes will be on Hidayat, but there’s also Alan Maulana and a lot of unknown runners who could cause a surprise. Shindy will be the woman-to-beat, but there’s also Sianti Candra on the start list. Ruth Theresia features on it as well, but has reportedly decided to save her energy for the ATM Championship points race Jember Hills Classic in two weeks from now.

One month after winning Mantra Summits, Arief Wismoyono is again the top favourite in Bali Ultra Trail

There’s many ATM Candidate Races in Malaysia this year and the next one in line is Transnaning Ultra Challenge in Tampin. This is quite a famous hiking and trekking route, renowned for its considerable degree of technicality. 2017 ATM Champion Steven Ong is the race director and designed a true challenge for ultra runners. The Transnaning loop is 33 km long and participants can choose to run one to five loops, the five loops measuring therefore approx 100 miles with an elevation gain of nearly 12000 hm. On paper, the toughest endurance trail challenge in the country therefore. It’s the kind of challenge for the selected few, of course, and most participants in the event content themselves with one or two loops. Amongst those who will attempt the five loops are last week’s winners of the Kadamaian Adventure Ultra 70, Milton Amat and Wilsen Singgin. Both have ample experience over the 100 miles distance, and let’s not forget that Wilsen Singgin won the Ultimate 230 of Ultra Trail Chiang Rai in 2019.

The Transnaning loop is renowned to be highly technical

Milton Amat and Wilsen Singgin came out on top of a challenging ATM Candidate Race in Kota Belud last weekend. The two runners were clearly at ease at Kadamaian Ultra 70k on their home soil in Sabah and put considerable distance between themselves and the others, such as Daved SImpat, a surprisingly strong Gustin Tiam, the Sumping brothers, Marius Mousin and Guianus Salagan. The breadth of trail talent in Sabah seems to be still growing, but Milton Amat - along with Simpat among the elders there - shows no signs of having slowed down since the covid crisis. In fact, Amat was on the backfoot and considerably behind Singgin and Simpat in the early stages of the race, which also involved a number of river crossings. But when the number 3 in the 2019 ATM Championship and winner of BUTM 100 last March turned on his engine after checkpoint 3 it did not take very long before he was right at the front with Wilsen Singgin. Simpat had to let both runners go and had a battle with Gustin Tiam for the last step on the podium. The lead duo stuck together and Milton did not contest the official race victory for Wilsen. The pair concluded the course in 10h53. In any case, their performances bode well for the big race in six weeks: Borneo TMBT Ultra, when Milton Amat will need to deal with a highly motivated Hisashi Kitamura again.

In the women’s race, we saw a convincing performance by Mailin Salungin and Kona Liau. Salungin was leading nearly the whole race, but Liau kept the pressure on and finished just ten minutes behind. The two of them were in a league of their own, with Adelinah and Jassica Lintanga ending their race together in third and fourth, but two hours back.

Mailin Salungin : great win and performance!