Dalat Ultra Trail - Race stopped due to flash floods
Sudden flash floods following heavy rainfall in Dalat and surrounding forest areas around noon on Saturday forced an immediate stop to all races of the Dalat Ultra Trail event. Runners were evacuated by the organisers and local rescue teams. Tragically, one runner was swept away by the strong mud streams and was found later, drowned. Several other runners also got caught by surprise, but they were all safely evacuated. The experienced team of Vietnam MTB Series, organiser of DLUT, was quick to stop all races as a horrendous rainstorm battered the area. It was therefore especially sad and shocking to hear that one person did not survive the attack of nature.
The dangers of flash floods are once again made obvious. Last year, a similar situation led to the TMMT race in Malaysia being re-routed whilst underway. Although Hisashi Kitamura decided to swim across a river , nobody got hurt that day.
It was a bad day for ultra running that will serve as a reminder of the inherent but often ignored dangers of our sport. On the same day in Ukraine in Southeastern Europe, a professional female ultra runner, age 33, died of a stroke following overheating and dehydration in a 62K local race held with temperatures of 38 degrees.
Before the race got cancelled in Dalat, a handful of long distance runners had managed to reach the finish line already. Hung Hai led nearly the whole 100K race by himself in wet conditions and won this year’s extreme edition. Another Vietnamese runner, Lanh Le scored a great second place and Frenchman Gaetan Morizur managed to just outrun Valentin Orange for the third spot on the podium. Pre-race favourite Nhon Trong decided to stop at CP 5 with fever in the early morning. First woman in the race before the stop was Julia Nguyen Thi Duong. She reached CP7 safely.
70KM B-Race: Tan Hy crossed the finish line momentarily after Hung Hai as winner of the 70K. He preceeded Si Hieu Nguyen by half an hour and Quang Duc Nguyen by 55 minutes. Strong performance by Tan Hy. Bowdery Grant took 4th and Vu Tran fifth.
All celebrations were obviously cancelled.