Veronika Vadovicova joins John Ellis as 2019 Asia Trail Master Champion after another jaw-dropping run at TNF Malaysia Mountain Trail Festival in Taiping in the State of Perak last Saturday. People are running short of superlatives when talking about the 29-year-old Slovak, even more now as she followed Kristian Joergensen and Alessandro Sherpa into the finish after 84km and 5000 hm…. ahead of Hisashi Kitamura and John Ellis. Vadovicova ends her sixth ATM race of the season unbeaten with 2700 total points, 100 more than Christine Loh and 175 more than Asuka Nakajima, who still leapfrogged Fredelyn Alberto in the final points race of the 2019 season.
More than 2100 runners turned up for the ATM Final at a fantasic arena - including marquee tent - inside the Spritzer Eco Park just outside the city centre of Taiping. The organising team - MMTF Consultant - left no stone unturned while preparing for the event and all their efforts paid off to the extent that event the weather gods were afraid of spoiling the party. Taiping, known as the wettest city in Malaysia, didn’t receive a spot of rain for four days! The contrast with 2018 when the event almost drowned in the swamp could not have been bigger. It proved event director Ewegene Tan right when he stated that even for Taiping standards last year was extraordinary.
As such, the mood was brilliant as soon as runners arrived at the arena on Friday. They were treated by food and drinks, local performances and ATM live interviews on stage during RPC. Nearly all the protagonists of this year’s Championship were present plus plenty of Grandmasters and other top runners who “did not want to miss this trail party’ . Among those where last year’s winner Daved Simpat, Kristian Joergensen, Xie Wenfei, Pablo Diago Gonzales, Ruth Theresia, Yuzof Eskandar, Seiji Morofuji and the strong Vietnamese duo of Quang Duc Nguyen and Nhon Trong. By Saturday’s start time of 6:00 am, two unfortunate news came in. First, Singapore-based Christine Loh confirmed she could not make it to Taiping in time for the 84k race due to work obligations (she ran 25k in the late afternoon and came a very good second in that race ahead of a.o. Tahira Najmunisaa). In fact, Loh was back at the finish just in time to see Veronika Vadovicova take the 84k win and therefore the ATM title. The second unfortunate news was the DNS of Sabah’s Milton Amat, who suffered a high ever attack on Friday night.
Unsurprisingly, outgoing ATM Champion Alessandro Sherpa woke everyone up immediately by driving a fast pace from the gun. Only Kristian Joergensen and Hisashi Kitamura felt like responding and tagged along. In the women’s, Guangzhou’s Kapheer Xie Wenfei looked strong and even arrived at the first checkpoint even ahead of Veronika Vadovicova and Asuka Nakajima. Eight kilometres further the positions would already switch, though, as Veronika turned on her engine and quite rapidly opened up a gap to her main opponents for the race win. By CP2 at km 30, it was already clear that the Slovak phenomenon was enjoying herself and having a blessed day. At that point she overtook Vietnam’s up-and-coming talent Nhon Trong for overall fifth place. Meanwhile, Joergensen had managed to pass Sherpa on the early slopes of Bukit Larut, the famous Taiping mountain that runners on the 84k had to climb twice, each time from a different direction. Using his poles effectively, the Manila-based Dane gradually ran away from Sherpa, without poles. However, while some feared the Italian would disintegrate - as happened a few times this season - he kept on going with a solid pace that was only a fraction slower than Joergensen. Not doing any competitive racing for two months and focusing on improving his training certainly paid off for Sherpa who had his best race of the year. Kitamura’s legs felt heavy after the previous two weeks of serious racing, but even Daved Simpat could not bridge the gap to Sherpa on Bukit Larut. About half an hour later newly crowned ATM Champion John Ellis passed by in good spirits and moving up the leaderboard (after 18km Ellis was running just inside the top 20…). New Zealand’s Gregg Porter and Yuzof Eskandar were having a great race in seventh and eighth, while Mohamed Affindi (ankle), Tomohiro Mizukoshi (knee) and Pablo Diago Gonzales (missing his top form) already showed signs of struggling. XIe Wenfei was comfortable as second woman, while Asuka Nakajima still had Ces Wael, Izzah Hazirah and Alyssa Ong in her rear view mirror so to speak.
The second ascent of Bukit Larut settled race positions. This was were Joergensen made the difference and showed he was the strongest runner of the day. In fact, he was outstanding. From just under ten minutes at the bottom he increased his advantage over Sherpa to more than half an hour at the summit. The Italian later admitted the second climb was tough. Lucky for him that SImpat and Kitamura had nothing left neither. In fact, Veronika Vadovicova looked fresher than all of them as she dropped the Japanese and caught up with a struggling SImpat just before the summit. The Sabahan then also decided to stop running citing knee pain. Kitamura then realised a male podium was still possible for him on this technical course that is normally not his best terrain. Sensing that his main rival for that podium spot would most likely be John Ellis, who is famous for returning from the back to the front in the final third of races, Kitamura began to dig deep in his energy reservoir. Ellis and Kitamura have developed this fierce yet friendly rivalry between them over the past season and Dot Track Asia GPS dot watchers were revelling at the sight of Ellis’ dot indeed creeping closer and closer to Kitamura’s with less than 20k to go.
The final 12km to the finish were anything but flat and the three “bumps” turned out to be steep legbreakers for most of the 84k runners. A very spicy desert after the two climbs of Bukit Larut. Those hills also squeezed the juice out of Joergensen’s legs. Nevertheless, he cruised home to the finish at Spritzer Eco Park to take his best race victory ever and his second of the season in ATM in a time of 10:22. Joergensen has recently switched to a vegetarian diet and follows a more detailed training plan. He’s visibly leaner than ever. Afterwards he confirmed his intention to try and challenge for the 2020 ATM title. Alessandro Sherpa finished a great second, albeit nearly 50 minutes later. That just shows how outstanding Joergensen was. Next in the finish was Veronika Vadovicova with her typical bright smile and totally relaxed look as if she had just gone for a 10k jog. Vadovicova is the new Asia Trail Master champion and nothing short of world class. It has been truly exciting to witness her path from the first win in March at Cordillera Mountain Ultra to last week’s Izu Trail Journey in Japan and now MMTF. 84k was Veronika’s longest race of the season, by the way, which proves that medium distance elites can also grab the ATM crown if they choose their points races well.
Hisashi Kitamura depleted himself entirely to claim fourth overal and third male on the podium. For the second race in succession, he has the upper hand against John Ellis - fourth male. The Australian already tipped the ever-improving Karate Kit for the 2020 ATM title challenge. Another runner who has become a genuine podium contender in the long and tough ultras is Sabah’s Wilsen Singgin. For the 28-year-old, winner of Ultimate 230 in Chiang Rai, it was also his third ultra weekend in a row and to finish 5th male and 15 minutes behind Ellis is impressive. Singgin was first Malaysian as well therefore and still forces himself into the ATM Championship final Top 10 of 2019. Vietnam’s Nhon Trong, too, is going to be a hot guy to follow next season. Hailing from Ho Chi Minh City, Nhon Trong only began running a year ago and already managed to get himself a big win at Penang Eco 50k this year, which put him under our microscope. Originally thinking of doing the 55k at MMTF, Nhon Trong upgraded to 84k on Friday night to race against and learn from the other elites. Sixth place was a great reward and according to several race observers on the course even more could have been possible.
Next came Xie Wenfei as second female and eight overall. The colourful China runner also expressed ATM title ambitions for next season and will certainly be a contender on her form of the last three months. The “stranger” on the MMTF course and inside the top 10 of the leaderboard all day turned out to be Gregg Porter from New Zealand, who made his debut on the ATM tour. Running very consistently, Porter secured 7th place in the male category. Malaysia’s Beng Wan Ong was another less familiar name in 8th place and second of his country. He managed to keep Tomohiro Mizukoshi and Seiji Morufji behind. The latter arrived together with 3rd place woman Asuka Nakajima, who by doing so also scored 50 extra points to jump ahead of Fredelyn Alberto to third place in the ATM Championship ranking. The Jakarta-based Japanese actually had a very good performance herself, which was testimony to her excellent debut season in ATM in which she scored 3 race victories. Philippines’ Fredelyn Alberto herself was still tired from her first 100 miles race in Thailand a week ago and finished 9th in the race. That translates into 4th place in the Championship.
Last year’s female MMTF winner Izzah Hazirah proved that she truly likes the Taiping terrain by edging out Ces Wael for fourth place. Alyssa Ong was next as sixth woman. Filipino mountain runner Koi Grey secured his fifth place in the ATM championship already before the start as Thailand’s Sukrit Kaewyoun was a DNS. It may have taken the pressure off Koi as he cruised into the finish as 14th.
The 2019 Asia Trail Master Championship is a wrap. We wish to express deep gratitude to all our contributors, sponsors, media and other supporters for the past season - the best ever yet again - and of course a BIG thank you to all you runners who keep coming in always bigger numbers and enjoying the events on our race calendar, be it as a championship contender or a Grandmaster Quest runner. Without all of you, Asia Trail Master cannot exist.
We wish everybody a fantastic festive season and we’ll be back hitting the trails on 18 January 2020 with the traditional season opener in Bandung, Indonesia: Tahura Trail !
