Milton Amat continues his reign in his home state of Sabah. On Saturday, the local hero won BUTM 55km in 6:05:06 after catching and overtaking a fading Alessandro Sherpa around km 40. As often, the 2018 ATM Champion had started out fast and put distance between himself and the other competitors. Despite cloudy weather, the temperature and humidity were still very high and plenty of participants suffered from dehydration at some point during the day. Sherpa included. His pace dropped significantly and he even contemplated retiring from the race at aid station 4 while lying on the ground trying to take in sports drink. Both Milton Amat and the once again surprisingly fast Wilsen Singgin had just passed him at that point. After some time, Sherpa got back up and continued for the final 11km to the finish line. He still managed to score third on the podium, staying ahead of Yasbie Ismail by 13 minutes. Milton Amat took the victory, but it is a stretch to say he was just cruising home. It had clearly been a working day for Amat, and he also admitted as much. Wilsen Singgin had also kept the pressure on, actually running faster than Amat in some sections and finishing just ten minutes later. Are we going to see Wilsen Singgin finally exploiting all his talent this season? In the three months since the end of last season, Singgin has looked remarkably fresher and more competitive as already illustrated by his 50k win over Sefli Ahar in Brunei two weeks ago.

The women’s 50km was entirely dominated by the youngster Shamiera Auther. Leading from start to finish, Auther proved her competitive progress and maturity in taking her first ATM race victory ahead of experienced runners such as Kona Laiu , Vicki Zhu and the Lintanga sisters Lolita and Jessica. Auther even had an advantage at the finish of over 50 minutes! Jessica Lintanga, who still had the upper hand over Auther in TMBT half a year ago, ran together with her younger sister. It was the first time Lolita entered the top five of an ATM race.

The 105km ultra looked like a bird in the hand for local hero Daved Simpat. The obvious pre-race favourite also seemed very much at ease on the trails on Saturday morning, leading by quite a long margin over e.g. Oswald Maikol, Sulhan Mohd, Gustin Tiam and Vietnam’s Nguyen Van Chung. But in the afternoon drama unfolded as Simpat retired himself from the race at WS6, citing two spells of ‘fainting’ earlier on. Even Sabah’s own top runners are not immune for the heat and humidity! With Simpat out, suddenly a number of runners were looking at a potential prestigious victory. Another Sabah veteran, Gustin Tiam took control and opened up a gap towards Sulhan Mohd, a relative newcomer in the ultra scene who last year won UTOP 100 in Penang. By the last aid station, Tiam looked like he was safe to grab victory - his first ever in ATM at the age of 48. A fantastic performance, indeed! Sulhan Mohd ran an amazing final sector to reduce the gap to Tiam from nearly 30 minutes to 18 minutes at the finish. Did he leave it just a bit too late? Nevertheless, Sulhan looks like a solid new name in the Malaysian ultra scene. Sabah’s Oswald Maikol dropped back after a fast start and would settle for third place, just like in TMBT 100 last season. Maikol had to dig deep at the end because Wont Kudin ran a fantastic final few hours emerging into the top ten and finishing fourth eventually, ahead of Muhammad Hazim, Nguyen Van Chung, Haziq Asyraf and Atsushi Ito, for example.

The women’s 100km also had a bit of a thrilling conclusion. Pre-race favourite and last year’s winner Rejlen James was in control of the race from the start and built up a nice gap towards the other competitors. However, also she as a local began to suffer from the conditions and found it increasingly difficult to manage her fluid and food intake. James’ advantage was melting away and she had to stop several times feeling sick. A well-trained Adelinah Lintanga, in her best race since winning Penang Eco in 2019, came ever closer , but James held on by 13 minutes at the finish in the middle of the night. The rejuvinated Lintanga was pleased with her own return to form and second place, but also realised she had come close to a big win. Just like with Sulhan in the men’s, did she leave her ‘attack’ too late? This year’s BUTM 100 looks like a nice case study in ‘how to manage your efforts and the time gaps to your competitors’ . In third place, we found the still quite young Lynda Marylyn, who showed her ultra distance talent again. Last year, she already came 2nd in the Borneo Miler - also behind Rejlen James. The very experienced Celeste Teo took fourth, and Penang’s Pei Fen Goh fifth.

An important mental victory for Milton Amat with a view on what’s to come later this ATM season

The 100 km men’s podium with Gustin Tiam, Sulhan Mohd and Oswald Maikol

The 100 km women’s podium with Rejlen James, Adelinah Lintanga and Lynda Marylyn

Shamiera Auther: first victory in ATM for the Malaysian youngster

As usual, the Malaysian Asia Trail Master season starts a bit later and typically BUTM is the first big appointment in the country. Alternating with The Borneo Miler, BUTM is once again a points race event with the spotlights put on the traditional 100k and 50k races. The trail stars from Sabah are all expected to run - based on the start list - and also vice-2023 ATM Champion Alessandro Sherpa has planned to open his ATM account this weekend.

BUTM is often called the ‘little sister’ of the classic TMBT in September, but it is definitely wrong to underestimate the event as such. The typical ingredients of a Sabahan trail race are there - deep jungle alternating with ethnic village and river crossings, Kinabalu views and humid conditions. Trails are generally more runable than some other rainforest races, but that also implies hydration is essential in this race. Plenty of runners each year drop out due to major cramps. As TMBT, BUTM is mainly a daytime race with the start at 6am. That means the races are very scenery-friendly and is probably why they also keep attracting a lot of non-Sabah runners, including foreigners.

Milton Amat and Wilsen Singgin both warmed-up for this weekend’s home event in Brunei a fortnight ago. At the BDUTM loop race, they both won their respective races and especially Singgin impressed by beating local hero Sefli Ahar in the final kilometres. He is known to be at his most competitive at long and tough ultras, but Singgin seems to be changing tactics and working on developing his running speed. This Saturday he will be running the 50km and not the 100km. The same applies for Milton Amat and for Alessandro Sherpa, which confirms the recent trend that sees elite trail runners shying away from the ultra distances in favour of running more medium distance races. In theory, the trio of Amat-Singgin-Sherpa are the most likely victory contenders, but we won’t be surprised if they first need to chase the traditional fast-starter Sefli Ahar first again. And let’s not forget that the more runable BUTM course suits the Bruneian more than the BDUTM loop two weeks ago. Chris Timms could get himself in the mix, too. The Singapore-based Britain has been away from the ATM scene for a while due to professional obligations, but we remember how fast he is on 50k. Plenty of new names on the start list of nearly 300 runners for the 50k, so who knows someone pulls a surprise , too.

The women’s 50km could see a battle for victory between Jess Lintanga and Shamiera Auther, with also Kona Laiu as a standard contender for the prizes. Last time out at TMBT, Lintanga still had the better of the young Auther. Plenty of unknown names on the start list here as well.

Looking at the 100km ultra, Daved Simpat appears to be the one-to-beat, certainly if he shows the same kind of pace and grit as in winning TMBT half a year ago. Simpat had arguably his best competitive performance in five years on that day, and if he can replicate that form again it is hard to see who could follow him. Hisashi Kitamura won’t be there, the usual Japanese challenger will be running Tokyo Marathon this weekend instead. Perhaps Vietnam’s young Nguyen Van Chung can make Simpat nervous? Van Chung is an up-and-coming talent in Vietnam who recently won the Prenn Ultra Candidate Race in Dalat. What can Davao’s Rexell Aguirre do at BUTM 100? Aguirre looked great winning the 100 miles race at Ultra Trail Chiang Rai in Thailand last October. Malaysia’s Moo Sat, Bernardo Linus and Gustin Tiam will be in the mix for the podium, as well as Japan’s Atsushi Ito. Fuminori Kondo is another Japanese runner who is returning to the ATM scene after several months out due to injury sustained at Mantra 116 last year.

Rejlen James is the obvious favourite in the women’s 100km race. Last year she won the so-called Borneo Triple, which includes BUTM 100, The Borneo Miler and TMBT 100. However, it did seem to take something out of her, too, as she ‘only’ came fifth at MMTF and the ATM Championship Final turned out into a competitive disappointment with James even failing to reach the top ten. Presumably a few months of rest will have done her some good. Celeste Teo and Adelinah Lintanga are logical podium contenders, and let’s see what the younger generation like Pei Fen Goh and Lynda Marylyn can do this weekend.

ATM will be reporting live from the BUTM event from start to finish on our usual channels.

Alessandro Sherpa starts his 2024 ATM campaign this weekend

Milton Amat: will 2024 be the year the Sabahan scores the championship title?

Rejlen James: unbeatable on home soil last year

Shamiera Auther: among the 50k favourites this Saturday

BUTM in Sabah, Malaysia, is NOT a points race in this season’s Asia Trail Master Championship series, as it was decided - in agreement with the event organiser Borneo Ultra Trails - that the 100 miles race at the new Borneo Miler event on 4/5 June will get the honour. Nevertheless, a lot of Malaysian trail stars were present at BUTM yesterday, together with the inevitable Hisashi Kitamura, who is still based in Kuala Lumpur until the end of April. And that same Kitamura finally scored his long-desired victory over Sabah’s trail hero Milton Amat. After 13h27’ he crossed the finish line of the 100km race first, and no fewer than 28 minutes ahead of Amat. The two friendly rivals had been running together for approx 75km until Kitamura decided to up the ante. Bit by bit he increased the gap.

Last year, the Karate Kit had also reached the finish first, but then lost the win due to time penalties for missing a checkpoint marker and a mandatory gear item. Later in the season, Milton Amat was clearly too strong for him in the classic TMBT 100 in September.

Third on the podium was good old Daved Simpat, who showed he remains a force to be reckoned with in any trail race. He finished two hours and twenty minutes behind Kitamura, but was himself more than two hours ahead of the next runners: Gustin Tiam, Andrew Farmers and Jonathan Nicol.

The women’s 100km saw a bit of an upset victory by Rejlen James, who reached the finish almost two hours ahead of vice-ATM champion Sally Yap and last year’s TMBT 100 winner Siet Fah Lim! Does James come out of the blue? Not really, our ATM database shows she won Bromo Tengger Semeru Ultra 100 in 2017, and was second that same year in TMMT 70k. Quite a comeback after six years!

BUTM 50km developed into a battle between Wilsen Singgin, for once opting for the shorter distance, and Yasbie Ismail. Singgin took it. Third place went to Korea’s Byeonggwon Park - who’s been on ATM podiums a few times before covid, too. The women’s 50km went to an exciting young Malaysian talent Shamiera Auther, who has clearly made a performance leap forward compared to last season. Shamiera won 23 minutes ahead of Korea’s experienced Boyoung Jan, who has three ATM podiums on her record of which two last year, and a full hour ahead of ATM local hero and Sabah ambassador Jess Lintanga in third place.

Promising new talent Shamiera Auther took a great victory in the 50k over several established competitors

These two guys always produce a great show, and over the past years have lifted each other’s performance level to great heights

What an event we had in Malaysia again last weekend! The Borneo Ultra Trail Marathon (BUTM) in Kiulu, Sabah, made its debut on the Asia Trail Master Championship calendar with a big bang, and offered drama, spectacular finishes, new faces and turbulent weather that made especially the 100 km a very tough challenge for all runners. During that 100 km, it became clear pretty quickly that Sabah’s new star Wilsen Singgin did not have the same legs as he did at MMTF last December. Blisters would make matters even more complicated and he never really featured for the podium. Fourth was the best he could hope for, but he would finish three hours behind the eventual winner. That winner was not the runner who crossed the line first. After an amazing dual reminiscent of pre-pandemic TMBT 2019, Hisashi Kitamura managed to come back and drop home favourite Milton Amat in the final kilometres. His excitement was short-lived, however, as the mandatory gear check - which is always conducted after the finish at BUTM and TMBT - revealed the Karate Kit missed his blinker, which cost him a time penalty of 1 hour. Moreover, a 30-minute time penalty was already looming for him ever since he missed - not deliberately - checkpoint 3 during the early stages of the race. The race jury therefore awarded the victory to Milton Amat and relegated Kitamura to third place, even behind good old Daved SImpat, who managed to stay within one hour of the leading duo. Despite the disappointment of missing out on a big victory in Sabah, Team Uglow’s Hisashi KItamura took the penalty with dignity. “I must have lost my blinker when I had a big fall halfway in the race, and I did not realise it,” he said. “Nevertheless I m very happy with my performance today on a very technical course and with Milton as a fantastic competitor!” Milton Amat returned the compliment on his facebook page by stating that Hisashi “beat him on the course today”. Milton officially completed the 106 km in 13 hours and 16 minutes. The number 5 in the result list, Aqmal Adzmi, not exactly a snail himself, finished over five hours later….

We knew from his strava exploits that Milton Amat, although no longer the youngest elite runner in the field, was in superb shape. Kitamura did not look the part at MMTF three months ago, but has managed to get back to his best form now the ATM season has gotten underway. We look forward to many more spectacular duals between the numbers 2 and 3 of the 2019 ATM Championship behind John Ellis.

The first woman of BUTM 100 was an interesting new face on the ATM scene in the person of Sally Yap. Hailing from Kuching in Sarawak, south of Brunei and Sabah, Sally Yap was in the lead for most of the race and arrived in just under 23 hours in the company of Japan’s Seiji Morofuji, who is more than a decent benchmark performance-wise. Yap was indeed three-and-a-half hours ahead of number 2, Aslin Sarawi. Siti Hajar Razali completed the women’s podium shortly afterwards. Pre-race favourite Adelinah Lintanga was a DNF around half distance.

The 50 km race category was also a points race for the ATM Championship, as we usually have in the early season. The specialists of the medium distance grabbed the opportunity to deliver a spectacle that was pure promotion for the sport. Local star Safrey Sumping could not shake off the tough Mohamed Affindi - winner of Tahura Trail in Indonesia in 2019 - during the race and both ended up sprinting full gaz and side-by-side to the finish! That does not happen very often in trail running and unsurprisingly there was no line on the ground to mark the actual finish. Deciding who came first was next to impossible and so both runners got announced as joint winners of the race. The fight for the third spot on the podium was equally tense. Moo Sat narrowly held off Marius Mousin to claim it. Amir Zaki was fifth and Jeffery Budin sixth. All big names in Malaysian trail running.

The women’s 50km was a very tight affair as well. Britain’s Amy Bartlett arrived first with just a minute advantage over SIngapore Deborah Lim. Halimatun Saadiah took third just over ten minutes later. Jess Lintanga settled for 21st place. Prior to the start she told our reporter that her training has only just begun again after nearly two years of focus on developing her now successful ethnic bracelet business.

Watch our facebook page for numerous video clips of the BUTM event, including interviews with the protagonists, courtesy of our ATM reporter on-site Mark Jinmin.

100k podium: Milton Amat (middle), Daved Simpat and Hisashi Kitamura

Women’s 100k podium with Sally Yap as winner, flanked by Aslin Sarawi and Siti Hajar Razali

50k podium men: Mohamed Affindi and Safrey Sumping joint first

50k podium women with Amy Bartley in the middle, flanked by Deborah Lim and Halimatun Saadiah

The first Malaysian event on the 2022 ATM Championship calendar is taking place in Sabah on the large island of Borneo, and it promises to be a cracker! BUTM, or the Borneo Ultra Trail Marathon, has a fantastic start list that will see great racing on both the 100 km and the 50 km, distance categories that both count for Championship points. BUTM is often called the little sister of TMBT, but in the mean time it has grown to be a popular highlight in itself. The races take place around Kiulu, an adventure playground where the famous Sabahan runners feel at home. Milton Amat, Wilsen Singgin and Daved Simpat, they will all be there on the 100 km. It would not be a major surprise if the trio takes the complete podium, but the competition will be fierce. Hisashi KItamura was no match for Wilsen Singgin last December at MMTF, but the KL-based Japanese has been working hard since then to get back to his best form. Also peninsular Malaysian runner Aqmal Adzmi has ambition to at least score another podium in an ATM race. In the women’s 100km, there’s Adelinah Lintanga, another local Grandmaster, who will have a good shot at another ATM race victory. Her sister Jess will be tackling the 50 km this weekend, a distance where she has booked her biggest competitive successes. Both women are of course favourites to be among the five Malaysian women to qualify for the ATM Championship Final in December. In the men’s 50km , we can expect a nice battle between local Saffrey Sumping and Mohammed Affindi.

We are pleased to announce that Borneo Ultra Trail Marathon, better known as BUTM, is joining the 2022 Asia Trail Master Championship calendar on 19/20 March. The younger sister of TMBT was probably the very last event that took place before the first round of lockdowns in Asia two years ago, and is firmly scheduled to take place in Kiulu (Sabah) in two months’ time. Event organiser Claus Pedersen does add that a number of measures and restrictions will still need to be adhered to, however, but registration is open!

Both the 109 km and 54 km race category options are included and offer ATM Championship points on 19 and 20 March. The 109 km is also valid for the Grandmaster Quest. Spots are limited, so do not hesitate too long with signing up. BUTM will be the first Malaysian points race of the new 2022 season. At the end of last year, local Sabahan and new star Wilsen Singgin crowned himself Malaysia Trail Master Champion at MMTF. Singgin is expected to run at BUTM, and will undoubtedly be cheered by all his fans.

All courses have start and finish at the riverside at Pekan Kiulu. As the official website reads, the present route description may still be subject to final optimization based on final testing and any requirements in relation to Covid-19 risk management.