Deep Japan Ultra with Kitamura opens Japan's back-to-back ATM weekends

For the third year in succession Deep Japan Ultra is one of the Japanese events on our ATM Championship calendar, featuring reputed 100 Miles and 80km race categories for points, including for runners on the Grandmaster Quest. From an ATM perspective, the 80km looks like the most interesting this year with Hisashi Kitamura among the favourites, and also fresh 4-star Grandmaster Tomohiro Mizukoshi in it. Taking place in beautiful Niigata, home region of event director Hiroaki Matsunaga, Deep Japan remains a considerable and underestimated challenge by many, especially with regard to the 100 Miles race.

It has become more quiet around Hisashi KItamura since he moved from Kuala Lumpur back to Tokyo after 8 years, but that does not mean the ‘Karate Kit’ is no longer racing. As we saw last year in the ATM Championship Final, we may actually still get to see the best Kitamura ever. He was a little disappointed with his Izu Trail performance last December - his only ATM race in Season 10 so far - , but he feels strong for Deep Japan. As always in Japan, we will get to discover new names of runners this weekend, too, making a race prediction not too easy. Hong Kong’s Vincent Chan and Thailand’s Jaruratchakul Naruchit may also say a few words on the 80k.

On the 100 Miles, apart from the domestic stars, we also see the names of Bali’s Nizar Surydratama on the start list, ATM Finalist last year and already solid again in V Trail in Laos earlier this season. The women’s 100 MIles start list sees Risa Kamiya, winner of Prenn Trail Summit 180 in Dalat last December, and other ATM regular names Ashwini Bhat from India and Rija Gubes from Malaysia.

Deep Japan Ultra is the first of two ATM points races in Japan scheduled on back-to-back weekends. Next week we also have Shiga Kogen 100 in the Japan Alps, nearby Nagano.