Amierul Amin and Ritzy Amor shine in Tunggul Melati Trail

Tunggul Melati Trail was a new ATM Candidate Race near KLIA airport and Putrajaya in Malaysia last weekend, Basically a night race for the faster runners wiith an evening start of the 85km and 65km main categories. The courses are generally quite runable, especially given the dry conditions of the past days, but the main difficulty - Bukit Tunggul - comes at the very end of the race. The expected favourites for victory also delivered: ATM FInalist and Grandmaster Ritzy Amor won the women's 85km race and finished third overall, behind the men's winner Amierul Amin and Bali's Nizar Surydratama. Grandmaster Rasyid Salehuddin was third on the men's podium just behind Amor, also a Grandmaster. Last month, Amierul Amin also won the Magnificent Baling 100, a race on our Grandmaster Quest calendar.

Amierul Amin finished in 12h15, indicating that the 85km race in Selangor, close to Putrajaya and Sepang was probably a bit tougher than generally assumed. The gap to Suryadratama was nearly two hours with Ritzy Amor still a bit further back.

On the 65km it was Yusof Abdul Manan taking victory by just 14 minutes over Chin Tat Lim. His finish time was 9h21. The women's race was won by Halimatun Sa'adiah in 10h38, ahead of fresh Grandmaster Ang Yee Mei, who completed the first level of her GM Quest just a week ago at Borneo TMBT.

Tunggul Melati Trail had well over 1500 participants for its second edition this year, spread out across several distance categories. It is expected to be held on the same early September weekend nest year as well.