The 11th edition of Tahura Trail in Bandung, Indonesia, saw a number of surprising names popping up on the top of the finisher’s sheet. The top 3 in the men’s race was entirely claimed by local runners who are especially known as road runners. Putra Julio Ekdo Badayu and Rudi Febriadi sprinted for victory at the end with Putra Aldo Hamzah taking third a couple of minutes later. Last year’s winner Alessandro Sherpa had to be content with fourth place. He stayed just ahead of Japan’s Hiroyuki Matsuda. Former Mantra 116 winner Ma’mun Khariri took sixth. 2015 ATM Champion Arief Wismoyono, last year still second in this race, now had to settle for tenth, two places ahead of Daniel Ortiz.

The 40km qualifier race for the Asia Trail Master Championship points ranking was held on a last-minute modified course following a nasty rain storm during the night that caused a few trees to fall and block the trails. As a consequence, participants had to run the short distance loop of 22km twice.

IIn the women's race it was good old Eni Rosita who remarkably won the race in what was her first ATM appearance in nearly a decade. Septiana Nia Swastika came second. The third step on the podium went to Anggia Noviarta Sari, who finished just ahead of Manis Manis. Yustina Wardhani was sixth.

The next Indonesian qualifier for the ATM Championship is BTR in Bali in the middle of May.

Men Top 8:

1. Putra Julio Ekdo Badayu in 3h05'31"

2. Rudi Febriadi 3h05'32"

3. Putra Aldo Hamzah 3h08'44"

4. Alessandro Sherpa 3h20'15"

5. Hiroyuki Matsuda 3h20'32"

6. Muhammad Ma'Mun Khariri 3h22'04"

7. Sobiri Haerudin 3h30

8. Slamet Riyadi 3h31'31"

Women Top 5:

1. Eni Rosita 4h41'50"

2. Septiana Nia Swastika 4h45'42"

3. Anggia Noviarta Sari 5h04'16"

4. Manis Manis 5h05'02"

5. Nuth Fasa Tirani Abditi Mandiri 5h06'07"

6. Yustina Wardhani 5h15'56"

Season 11 of the Asia Trail Master Championship series continues this weekend after the Christmas and New Year’s break with the classic Tahura Trail in Bandung. The 11th edition of the event, which returned to the calendar last year after a five-year-break, is the first Indonesian qualifier of the ATM season and also one of the shortest. Sticking to tradition, Tahura Trail retains its 42km ‘trail marathon’ as the longest category. Last year’s male winner Alessandro Sherpa will once again toe the starting line on Saturday morning.

Over the years, It’s not become any easier for IBA to organise Tahura Trail in the big park carrying the same name. For this edition, registration could only open two months ago. Nevertheless, runners signed up en masse for the various categories and more than 400 runners will compete on the 42km. The late scheduling did have some impact on the ‘elite’ field, which seems less dense than in previous editions. That could make for some exciting open racing, though, with newcomers grabbing the opportunity to get themselves known on the international scene.

Alessandro Sherpa is the logical favourite in the men’s race, of course. The Italian began his preparation for next month’s ATM Championship Final about two months ago after a lengthy work-caused break and Saturday’s race will be an indication where he stands competitively right now. After several podium places Sherpa won last year’s Tahura ahead of another former ATM Champion Arief Wismoyono. This weekend, his main challengers are likely to be Abdul Aziz Dermawan, who had a great Season 10 and is signed up for Team Indonesia in next month’s ATM Championship Final at the 9 Dragons in Hong Kong. Also, Yusuf Aprian remains a dangerman, even though he has shifted his attention mainly to the very long ultras in recent seasons. Indonesia-based Colombian Daniel Ortiz and Sobiri Haerudin can also eye a podium result, if not more.

The women’s race does not seem to have an outspoken favourite. Look out for Yustina Wardhani and good-old Eni Rosita to finish towards the front in any case. Singapore-based Vanja Cnops won the race a year ago ahead of local hero and former ATM Champion Ruth Theresia.

Tahura is a big park just outside Bandung City, which makes it also accessible and nice for the whole family to spend a weekend there. The park has lots of great restaurants, coffee bars and sightseeing activities.

ATM will be reporting live from the race on Saturday morning on the usual channels.

Alessandro Sherpa won the men’s race last year

Yusuf Aprian in the 2019 edition of Tahura Trail

Daniel Ortiz

A classic on the ATM Championship calendar is opening registration this weekend. The 11th edition of Tahura Trail in Bandung, Indonesia, is scheduled for 24/25 January 2026 with the 42km once again a qualifying points race for Season XI in our Championship. Tahura Trail will be the first qualifier of 2026 and the first of a triple header before lunar new year, with Vietnam Trail Marathon and Kalaw Ultra Trail Run coming up the weeks after.

Many ATM stars have run and won Tahura, which used to be our traditional season opener in the years before the corona crisis. Jeff Campbell (twice), Tahira Najmunisaa, Mohammed Affindi, Kim Matthews and last year’s Alessandro Sherpa and Vanja Cnops are just a few of the big names on Tahura’s list of race winners. The 42km course is also great for the beginning of a new year, with many returning to competition after a festive break. An idea mix of runable and technical sections, people do get a good idea of what trail running is about. Weather always plays a role. When wet, it gets muddy and slippery as well.

Tahura is a big park just outside Bandung City, which makes it also accessible and nice for the whole family to spend a weekend there. The park has lots of great restaurants, coffee bars and sightseeing activities.

Bandung has a small, but international airport. Access via Indonesia’s capital Jakarta has also improved over the years, with a fast train now linking the two cities. Travel time can be as short as one hour.

Registration opens on Saturday, 29 November via the website linked below.

The 10th anniversary edition of Tahura Trail in Bandung, Indonesia, saw the ‘older’ established guard comprehensively take the measure of the young guns in the 42km ATM Championship points race. Alessandro Sherpa scored his 7th ever ATM race victory and Vanja Cnops collected her 8th in the women’s category. Both have been around for many years now and behind them were 2015 ATM Champion Arief Wismoyono and 2018 ATM Champion Ruth Theresia. Risqi Kurniawan suffered a leg injury and finished outside the top 25.

The course of Tahura Trail had been completely redesigned for its first edition in five years. Heavy rainfall already in the days preceding the event turned many sections into a severe mudfest, which was certainly not to everyone’s liking or expectation. Luckily, at least on race day there was a pause in precipitation. Tough and technical running conditions, perhaps it was therefore no coincidence that those with more trail experience took the biggest prizes at the end. Sherpa is even a former mountainbiker and Cnops a former national team cross country runner in the typical muddy fields in Belgium. Bandung runners Ruth Theresia and Arief Wismoyono are also among the most technically-skilled trail runners, and in the case of Wismoyono it was even a mightily impressive feat to finish second just about three minutes behind Sherpa. Now over 40, Wismoyono had not looked this fast and competitive in several years. For Sherpa it was his second consecutive victory in Indonesia, after Bali Ultra 50 last August. In third place came Ujang Ahmad Saripudin, a newcomer on the ATM scene. He did great finishing just eleven minutes behind the winner, and nearly fourteen minutes ahead of the likes of Akhmad Nizar, Muhammad Faris from Malaysia, Taofik Hidayat, Mikdarulloh and Sobiri Haerudin. In ninth place we had a great run by Thimo Kilberth, another good old trail runner who exceeded expectations. Consider he finished ahead of Sobari Herdiana and Risqi Kurniawan. The latter, the top favourite before the race, still hung on the leaders early, but then faded away citing pain in his legs. Another former podium placer at Tahura, Margono, also settled for just 23rd place. ATM regulars Luis Alvelais and Abang Jamadi Rosli finished in 13th and 15th, respectively.

Vanja Cnops was, as expected, too fast for the other women. Fitta Emike Sari ran a great race competing with Ruth Theresia for second place. Previously, Sari had already scored a second place in Mantra 116 in 2023, so her performance in the hard conditions in Bandung did not fall out of the blue sky. Theresia ultimately took the upper hand at the end, but Sari came in just a minute later.

The next Indonesian points race on the ATM Championship calendar is BTR in Bali on the second weekend of May. That event, returning to ATM for the first time since 2022, offers 100k and 60k options for runners seeking qualification for the Season 10’s ATM Championship Final in early October.

After a long five years interruption, the 10th edition of Indonesia’s most popular trail event in terms of participation numbers is back. Tahura Trail in Bandung was a genuine classic medium distance trail race before the covid crisis, and over 3500 runners will celebrate its return this weekend. Among them are many competitive runners for the 40km as well, hoping to score a podium finish and a good haul of ATM Championship points. Indonesia’s Risqi Kurniawan will face his usual local challengers, but also a.o. Alessandro Sherpa - who has already been 2nd (2020) and 3rd (2018) in this race before. In the women’s 40km, we have local hero and former ATM Champion Ruth Theresia and Singapore-based Vanja Cnops.

Taman Hutan Raya Tahura Ir. H. Juanda is the full name of the park where the event takes place, just outside the city centre of Bandung, one of Indonesia’s biggest cities in West Java. It’s a popular weekend destination where you can just go and relax, or engage in all kinds of outdoor activities. The trail race is not the longest at 40km, also not the toughest, but it’s always been exciting to follow. Weather plays an important role - this year’s edition could be more wet and muddy than the last two in 2020 and 2019 - , but it’s a course where each runner can find sections to his or her liking. It’s varied, but you better still have a solid running pace - as the race’s record indicates. Jeff Campbell won here twice and Mohamed Affindi scored his first ATM race victory here in 2019. Many ATM Champions have won Tahura, but our reigning champions will not. Lunar new year is close and Jeff Campbell and Priya Rai have other priorities in the coming weeks.

However, 2018 Champion Alessandro Sherpa is in with a good shot, although he himself downplays his chances for this Saturday morning. Sherpa had an up-and-down 2024 trail year, mainly due to a stubborn injury. It’s been rather quiet in the past few months, but two weeks ago, Sherpa felt some good vibes again in a road marathon in Malaysia. The competition in Tahura is for real, of course. Not many Indonesian men have actually won the race, and this time it feels like everyone is there. Risqi Kurniawan typically has the edge on medium distance course, but runners like Sobari Herdiana, Sobiri, Margono and Dedy Yusuf will certainly give it their all. And so will Bandung heroes Arief Wismoyono and Taofik Hidayat. Also in the field this Saturday: Luis Alvelais and Thimo Kilberth.

In the women’s 40k race, Vanja Cnops will be looking for her 8th ATM race victory after a winless 2024 in our series. The Singapore-based Belgian should love both the distance and the course in Bandung, so she is the logical top favourite. It’s her first race in Season 10, so she can open her points account with a maximum haul. We are also happy to see Ruth Theresia on the start list of her home race. Still the most successful female runner in our series ever with 11 race wins, and a true ambassador for the sport in Indonesia. Yustina Wardhani is another podium candidate, she was 9th in the 2023 ATM Championship Final.

Asia Trail Master will be reporting live from Tahura Trail all day on Saturday from 5:45 am local time onwards. The 40km is scheduled to be flagged off at 6 am.

Risqi Kurniawan is the top favourite amongst the Indonesian runners

Sherpa returns to Tahura : 3d in 2018, 2nd in 2020, victory in 2025?

Vanja Cnops can add another Indonesian race win to her record this Saturday

It has been five long years but - at last - the very popular Indonesian event Tahura Trail in Bandung is returning to the trail and Asia Trail Master Championship calendar. The 10th anniversary edition is scheduled for 25 January 2025 with a brand new course of 40km for Championship points, along a wide range of shorter distances for the less ambitious. Before covid struck, Tahura Trail was by numbers the most popular trail event in Indonesia and the traditional opener of the ATM season. It’s one of the shortest points races on the calendar, but it has always been an exciting one to follow with loads of fast runners taking part.

Our reigning ATM Champion, Jeff Campbell, has won it twice already, in fact. Including the last edition in 2020. Other winners in Tahura’s rich history are Tahira Najmunisaa, Kim Matthews, Mohamed Affindi, Asuka Nakajima and Charlotte Taquet.

The 40km course has nearly 1300m of elevation gain and is a great mixture of runable and technical sections. When it’s dry it’s fast, when it’s been raining it’s muddy and tougher than one would expect. It is the training ground for many of Bandung’s well-known trail runners, not in the least our former ATM Champions Ruth Theresia and Arief Wismoyono.

Tahura is the name of the large park next to the city of Bandung in West Java. It’s also a place for weekend retreats with lots of nice restaurants and coffee & teahouses. There is an airport in Bandung with a few international flights, but nowadays the journey from Jakarta to Bandung has also become much faster thanks to a high-speed train.

Registration has opened already , please go to the official website of Tahura Trail.

Tahura Trail : Running Back In Time

The 9th edition of Tahura Trail in Bandung will not be the same spectactular trail festival weekend as usual, but at least there will still be ‘real’ trail running on the original 42k marathon course, and ATM Championship points up for grabs on Saturday, 23 January. Good news for runners in Indonesia, who have a chance to score points in the same manner those in Vietnam, Thailand and Japan have been able to do in the past couple of months. It is a brilliant and laudible effort by the running division of IBA, technical event organisers, to make this happen in an area where the health crisis is currently far from over. Registration opens on Boxing Day, 26 December.

Under the tagline “The new normal” , the Tahura Trail event as a whole will actually last for two full weeks, as covid 19 prevention measures do not allow more than 150 people inside the park and on the trail course on the same day. The event protocol has been agreed with local authorities and will be strictly policed. Even though everyone has a fortnight from 16 to 31 January to run the course in the various race distance categories, it is important to emphasise that the elite runners aiming for ATM Championship points must sign up for the race on the 23rd, as all other days do not count. The main reason is to of course ensure everyone will be running in the same weather and trail conditions.

The Indonesian country borders remain closed for the time being, so the event will be held with domestic residents-only. Race packages, including timing chip, will be sent by post to successful registrants, who also need to hand in a valid rapid test result certificate from a hospital when they come to the Tahura park. Runners are required to download the race route onto their GPS watch or phone app, and follow the permanent marking signs along the route. Very important for result verification is also the requirement to take photos at the starting point, all checkpoints along the route and the finish point. The official starting time for the elite 42k race is between 6 and 8 am.

Last January the Tahura Trail race was won by Jeff Campbell, who had already won once back in 2018, and Charlotte Tacquet. In the upcoming edition, local and other Indonesian trail stars such as Ruth Theresia, Arief Wismoyono, Yusuf Aprian and Taofik Hidayat will have a great opportunity to boost their ATM Championship ranking before international events resume again.

What a podium in the men’s race last year. Jeff Campbell took his second win at Tahura

Max 150 runners permitted per day, but that should still provide for a great race on the 23rd when the ATM Championship points are on the line

At home in the Tahura Park: Ruth Theresia. She could move up to 2nd place in the 2020-21 ATM Championship ranking

Will Yusuf Aprian grab the chance to run himself into the international picture this time around?

More than 3600 runners took part in the 8th edition of the Tahura Trail event in Bandung, Java, Indonesia, of whom 620 on the 42 km trail marathon - the opening points race of the 2020 Asia Trail Master Championship season. As in 2018, Hong Kong-based Canadian Jeff Campbell grabbed the race win ahead of Alessandro Sherpa, Hishashi Kitamura, Pablo Diago Gonzales, Ando Akihide and last year’s winner Mohamed Affindi. Running conditions were quite ideal for Bandung standards and this translated in fast times. Campbell went below 4 four hours for the first time in the race’s history.

In the women’s race, France’s Charlotte Taquet from Hong Kong’s Gone Running Team had a rather comfortable maiden race victory in ATM. Taquet has her eyes set on the Championship title this season and could not have wished for a better start of her campaign!

Below is the video race report of the main contenders’ finish arrivals.

A fantastic men’s podium with Kitamura clearly aiming for something in the coming months …

A new face and new ATM race winner: Charlotte Taquet!

Ando Akihide was a very strong fifth place, overtaking Mohamed Affindi in the final section!

Taifuk Hidayat was the best male Indonesian this year with 7th place

Jeff Campbell in his element at Tahura Trail: his 2nd victory here in 3 years

Alessandro Sherpa confirmed the good vibes from MMTF: he’s back at his best with possibly more to come!

After taking a bit of a very welcome break since MMTF, Hisashi Kitamura settled for third but did not forget his trademark ‘Karate Kit’ jump!

This Saturday Tahura Trail kicks off the 6th edition of the Asia Trail Master Championship series. The traditional season opener in Bandung, Indonesia, has smashed its own record and attracted well over 3000 participants including several elite runners from the Asian region for the 8th edition of the country’s biggest trail event in terms of participant numbers. The 42km long trail marathon remains the main race category on which finishers will collect their first ATM Championship points of 2020.

While several event organisers every year feel a need to increase the distance of their longest race, Agung Adijani of IBA stays with 42km ‘because the course works’. For sure it does. Tahura Trail has a bit of everything you can expect of a trail running course. While it is shorter than most, the 1800 hm of elevation will make itself felt and the technical sections are challenging for each participant. While the weather gods treated the runners well in the past two years, rainfall in Bandung can always turn Tahura into a bit of a mudfest as well. As such, nothing is a given in this race and even the fastest legs sometimes get beaten by those with more overall strength and technical skill. Last year’s winner Mohamed Affindi is a prime example of that when he had the better of the theoretically quicker runners Pablo Diago Gonzales and Tomohiro Mizukoshi.

Malaysia’s Affindi is returning to Bandung this weekend in an attempt to repeat last year’s performance and kickstart his 2020 ATM campaign. Work commitments in the army prevented him from living up to his full potential for most of last season, but according to his team Malatra manager Razif Yahya he will have more opportunities for focused training and racing in the coming months. While Singapore-based Spaniard Pablo Diago Gonzales will be one Affindi’s biggest rivals again this Saturday, arguably the top favourite is 2018 winner Jeff Campbell.

The Canadian from Hong Kong, running for our preferred retail store partner Gone Running-Joint Dynamics, is indeed coming back to Tahura Trail and with more than just this one ATM race in mind. Inspired by John Ellis and perhaps even more by Veronika Vadovicova, Campbell has stated he wants to give the championship a go. The Slovakian phenomenon proved that you don’t need to win a series of 100k races to get the points needed to claim the ATM title at the end of the season. Her longest race in 2019 was the last one in Taiping: 84 km. By exploiting his experience of two years ago Campbell is looking for the best possible start of his championship campaign. He won’t get the victory presented on a silver platter, though. Aside from the aforementioned contenders Affindi and Diago Gonzales, Campbell will need to deal also with Alessandro Sherpa, Hisashi Kitamura and the motivated local hero Yusuf Aprian. Together with Margono, Sherpa was the one pushing Campbell forward in this race two seasons ago and is arguably now in better shape than then. Karate Kit is making his debut in Bandung and we know his amazing speed on the medium distance. In the case of the Uglow Asia leader we need to wait and see how well he has recovered from a very long and tough 2019 season, in which he of course finished as runner-up to Ellis in the ATM Championship. Yusuf Aprian is still the youngest of all the known podium contenders and is keen to improve his performance once again. Aprian is part of the famous Bandung Explorer Team of Arief Wismoyono and Ruth Theresia and reportedly wants to give the ATM Championship a go this season. As such he may become a favourite for the new and soon-to-be-introduced T8 Trophy for the ‘Best Youth Runner’ in the 2020 Asia Trail Master Championship series.

Other potential podium contenders in the men’s race are the inevitable Rudi Iskandar, Stephen Dundon and Aris Sopiandi Muklis (the 2019 Indonesia Trail Master). The beauty of the season opening race is of course that we may always discover new names…. such as Asuka Nakajima last year.

Asuka Nakajima burst onto the ATM Scene by winning Tahura Trail ahead of Sri Wahyuni. This weekend, however, both runners are not on the start list. The women’s 42k race could become a race between two Asia-based French ladies: Charlotte Taquet and Josephin Anselin, and local hero Ruth Theresia. The latter’s participation in the 42k is still a bit in doubt given her busy racing schedule coming up with also the 9 Dragons in Hong Kong and the EcoTrail Al Ula in Saudi Arabia as targets for her new ATM campaign. In the last two years, Ruth has indeed used the 21K B-race at Tahura as a speed test and may opt to do that again. On paper, though, a podium on the 42k should be a given. Josephin Anselin is based in Jakarta and known as a very fast marathon runner, but she has been out of racing for a long time due to persistent injury that plagued her last year. If Anselin is fit, she could be the measure of things although her relative lack of experience in trail may boost the chances of Theresia and of Charlotte Taquet. Keen ATM fans may remember that name from the 9 Dragons last year. Indeed, she won the 50km. That was not a points race then (this year it is!), but note that Taquet beat none other than Kim Matthews and Sandi Menchi that day! Running for the T8 Team of John Ellis, Taquet has been put forward as a challenger for the women’s ATM Championship. As usual, ATM will be reporting LIVE from the events also this season via our facebook page and instagram primarily. The 42k race coverage at Tahura begins on Saturday early morning around 6 am.

Mohamed Affindi on the way to victory at Tahura last year

Jeff Campbell returns to Bandung after winning here two years ago

Yusuf Aprian is Indonesia’s young hope for competitive trail running

There’s always a great festive vibe at the first event of the new ATM season!

It is of course already known for months, but also in 2020 the Asia Trail Master season will commence in Indonesia, and more precisely with the 8th edition of Tahura Trail in Bandung, West Java on 18 January. We cannot think of a better event to start a championship and are indeed delighted to have extended the agreement with Mr Agung Adijani, the driving force behind Tahura Trail. The event features a wide range of race distance categories, but it is of course the 42 km long trail marathon that matters for the ATM Championship, which in 2020 enters its sixth edition.

The race calendar for 2020 is beginning to shape up and features a number of meanwhile classic Asian trail races and a few exciting newcomers. To begin with the EcoTrail Al Ula in Saudi Arabia: a 80km awesome run in a new destination that has everything to become a tourism hotspot in future. The race course is our own design, in fact. Saudi Arabia is one of the new countries in the 2020 ATM season. The other big one is (most likely) India! On our website and our facebook page you can already see the list of 2020 races for the first four months. This list won’t change. In May we may very soon announce a second event to precede Vietnam Jungle Marathon, and also in June there will be changes to what we had in 2019. Stay tuned for updates. Malaysian runners should be aware that the SuperTrail this year will be Borneo TMBT Ultra, which will celebrate its 10th anniversary in 2020.. The 100km is the key points race, but we are trying to elevate the 50k to the same status as well - given it is so competitive as well every year. Speaking of which, the 9 Dragons Ultra in Hong Kong now focuses on the 50/50 stage race and the 50k single race, too, so no longer the 50 miles. Throughout 2019 we have picked up vibes from elite and regular trail runners that there’s too much emphasis on ultra long distances. Hence, we will try to bring long and medium distance more in balance to the extent possible. Stay tuned via our usual channels.

Meanwhile, sign up for Tahura Trail and spend another fantastic weekend in the beautiful Bandung area, which also has an airport if you wish to avoid the car/bus journey from Jakarta.

Tahura Trail website and registration

2019 Video Recap: Mohamed Affindi scores a big win!

2019 Video recap: Asuka Nakajima takes inaugural win in women’s 42k!

At the start line, the men’s podium looked like it was written in the stars

Tahura Trail organiser Agung Adijani will once again open the Asia Trail Master Championship in 2020

Tahura Trail is truly the best season opener imaginable!

Malaysian powerhouse Mohamad Affindi grabbed his maiden win on the Asia Trail Master tour with a masterful run at Tahura Trail in Bandung, Indonesia, last Saturday. Taking the bull by the horns from the get-go, Affindi still had enough dash left in the tank to fend off the late charge by the surprisingly quick Pablo Diago Gonzales. Tomohiro Mizukoshi was a great third, while his Japanese compatriot Asuka Nakajima controlled the women’s 42k trail race and made a perfect ATM debut.

The 7th edition of Tahura Trail was one for the record books with over 2700 people registered for the four races that took place during the weekend. 480 of them appeared on the start list of the 42k trail marathon, which for the third year in succession was the opener of the Asia Trail Master Championship season. As per tradition, the current ATM champions were present at the Tahura Park. However, Alessandro Sherpa (recovering from a surgical procedure two weeks ago) and Ruth Theresia (in training for her first goal, the 9 Dragons Ultra) did not compete in the main event. Bandung in January is often hit by heavy rain showers, but for the first time in three years, the race was dry from start to finish.

Whenever a new season kicks off, we look forward to seeing new names appear on the boards, but this time in the men’s it was the established guard who controlled proceedings. Mohamad Affindi had been chasing a race win in ATM for one-and-a-half years, scoring multiple second places in the process, and finally got it right in Bandung. The 34-year-old Malaysian typically started fast and went solo after local youngster Yusuf Aprian, Ari Masrudi and Japan’s Tomohiro Mizukoshi were overheating. Seasoned long distance trail runner Mizukoshi was able to maintain a high pace, though, and didn’t allow Affindi to lose focus. Aprian lost a bit more terrain, yet would finish eventually as fourth and that is a visual improvement from last season, when he got eighth. Aprian, only in his mid-twenties, was the top Indonesian runner on the weekend and increasingly looks like the man who could challenge Arief Wismoyono - unable to run in Tahura due to work obligations - for the number one spot in his country. On the other hand, Masrudi didn’t have the best of runs as he slipped from second (2017), fifth (2018) to sixth this year. He was the one who resisted most to Affindi’s early attack. Another local trail veteran, Rudi Iskandar, managed to pass Masrudi at the end to score fifth place. Christovik Simatupang and Fandhi Achmad were the next finishers.

And where was Pablo Diago Gonzales all that time? At some point, the Singapore-based Spaniard was down in tenth place! However, he is not a three-time race winner and two-time top five ATM championship finisher for nothing. Diago Gonzales left the early battles to the others, and gradually began to up his pace in the second half of the race. One by one he collected and overtook, and in the final five kilometre he even passed Tomohiro Mizukoshi going into second place. Eventually, he even approached Affindi, which made the latter so nervous he shifted back up a gear and powered over the final hill to the finish line in 4:27. The top trio arrived relatively close together they all got into the live video broadcast that you can see below. By all means an excellent start of the season for all three protagonists.

The women’s race was perhaps less spectacular as Asuka Nakajima’s pace was just a little too high for Surabaya’s Sri Wahyuni, who collected yet another podium place in an ATM points race. Wahyuni will take comfort in Affindi’s victory, as it also took him a long time before finally taking the podium’s top step. Nakajima is based in Jakarta, runs a 3:14 road marathon, and will be someone to be reckoned with in the next months, as she is poised to compete in several ATM points races, including even the super tough Indonesia SuperTrail, Mantra Summits Challenge in Malang in July.

Debby Meylia won the 21K race ahead of Ruth Theresia, who was ‘in training’. Still, a remarkable run by the road runner from Jakarta

Below is the video summary of the live broadcasts on the Asia Trail Master facebook page during the Tahura Trail 42K race.

Tahura Trail 42K - FInish of the Men’s Winner Mohammad Affindi

Tahura Trail 42K - Finish of Women’s Race Winner Asaku Nakajima

Tahura Trail 21K - Finish of the race winners

Tahura Trail : Broadcast of the race start