It was a busy weekend with two ATM Championship points races in South Korea and Vietnam, plus an ATM Candidate in Sabah, Malaysia. The most striking performance was signed by Jeff Campbell at the Vietnam Jungle Marathon in Pu Luong. The Hong Kong-based Canadian went out of his comfort zone by tackling the 70k long race, but it hardly showed as he beat two-time race winner this year Gaetan Morizur and 2019 VJM winner Hisashi KItamura in a hard-fought battle. The lead trio were in a league of their own with Campbell finishing in a time of 7h03 (for 70k and 3000 hm) , half an hour ahead of Frenchman-in-Vietnam Morizur, who himself managed to pass Kitamura in the dying moments of the race for second place. All three class acts deserve applause for their spirited performances on Saturday. Far behind them, Ivan Grigorev took a solid fourth place, ahead of Vietnam’s Hoang Huu Thang, who has been very busy this season - last week he still completed the gruelling UTOP 105km in Malaysia. He will be rewarded with a quasi guaranteed qualification for Team Vietnam in the ATM Championship. Most of the big names in Vietnam were absent from the race last Saturday.

Not absent, and placing herself nicely between the top 3 and Grigorev was Vanja Cnops. The Belgian had no competition in the women’s race and as such could set her own pace throughout. Her winning time was 9h08. Vietnam’s Vu Thi Lan Huong was a good second, boosting her ATM points total into a safe zone for ATM Championship qualfication. Hoàng Xuân Vân Anh completed the podium in third place.

The trails around Pu Luong were quite dry and more runable than ever, which partially explains the very fast times. Kitamura was 50 minutes faster than his winning race in 2019. Vanja was more than 1h30’ faster than three years ago.

Over in Seoul, global trail star Gediminas Grinius delivered a fine performance by winning the 100k race in 12h53, almost 45 minutes ahead of Korean ace Kim Jisu. In third place we had Sim Jae Duk in 14h04. Among the ATM Championship protagonists we noted a nice 7th place for UTCM winner Yuta Matsuyama. Tomohiro Mizukoshi was a DNS after suffering from a bad cold late last week. The women’s 100k race saw a Korean success with Jung Soon Park having the better of Japanese duo Tomomi Bitoh and Kanna Suzuki.

The 50k was dominated as expected by the fastest Korean trail star since years, Kim Jisub. He finished the race 1h13’ faster (!!!) than second-placed Heeseong Noh. Seung Jae Min and Sangmin Chung were together in third and fourth. Japan’s Moeko Yasugahira won the women’s 50k, ahead of Boyoung and Yunmin Lee.

There’s been quite a few new events in Sabah this year, and Kokol Ultra is the latest one keen on getting a place on the ATM Championship calendar in the near future. The new 50k race could count on nearly all the big names in Sabah and they did not disappoint. Milton Amat was a clear winner once again, cementing his position as one of ATM’s best performers this season. Imagine he had been at VJM this weekend…. Barely a week after his 126km slog in Penang, WIlsen Singgin toed a starting line again and managed to get second place ahead of a surprisingly strong Jude Maikol in third.

In the women’s Kokol 50 race, we saw a nice resurgence of Jassica Lintanga as a competitive racer. “Jess” recent training efforts are paying off as she had the better of her younger sister Adelinah Lintanga and Aslin Sarawi.

Round-up: great score for Campbell at VJM