Grandmaster Quest points were on offer in Penang, Malaysia, last weekend at the annual Ultimate Trails of Penang event, better known as UTOP. Just one week after the scheduled Season 10 Final, it could not be a Championship points race this year. Two race categories above 70km were on the programme, namely the 100 miles and 100km. Penang is highly underrated when it comes to difficulty level of the trails and so it proved once again.

On the 100 miles, Grandmaster Seng Lip Ku was leading the race comfortably until he dropped out with knee pain. His place at the top of the leaderboard was taken up by Mohammadlee Binlateh, who finished the 100 miler in 43h48. Sai Hee Lim and Zahiruddin Bin Mohammad completed the men’s podium. Siow Yen Wong was the strongest woman in the longest ultra, finishing third overall as well in 46h26. Chin Chin Chan was the second and only remaining female finisher.

On the 100km distance, victory went to Mohd Nazrin Shah Bin Jamlee in 21h58. He was followed by the first female, Ang Yee Mei in 24h07! A great win by Ang Yee Mei, ahead of Hong Kong’s Grandmaster duo Ellen Cheng and Rachel Chan, the latter one of several who went the wrong way at some point during the race. Ameer Izuddin Ridzuan and Harith Hatta were second and third male on the podium.

The 5th anniversary of Ultimate Trails of Penang started with heavy rain on Friday noon, but ended in sunshine as the participants in all various distance categories enjoyed a great time out on the beautiful trails of the island. Beautiful, but tough. Especially the longer races again proved their reputation of being amongst the toughest on the entire ATM calendar. Of 66 starters on the 100 Miles, only 5 managed to finish. The experienced Aqmal Adzmi was fastest and scored his first ever ATM victory in 38h40’39”. Early in the long race, he was running together with Australian Andrew Farmers and the surprising Seng Lip Ku. However, already in the evening time, now dry, Adzmi took an advantage. In fact, Farmers would decide to retire at km 91 on Saturday morning, suffering from his feet and expressing his surprise of the technicality of Penang’s trails compared to those in Sabah, where he resides. Seng Lip Ku was joined by Tuan Hafandi Tuan Ismail, and at km 120 would likewise throw in the towel with knee pain. A sad conclusion of his great race until that point.

At the finish back at the Youth Park, Aqmal Adzmi was over five hours ahead of Tuan Hafandi Tuan Ismail as the rain again started pouring down at nighttime in Penang. David Khoo completed the podium in third place. It's Adzmi's first ATM race win ever after a podium spot at MMTF 2022 and several top ten placings.

Only six runners are still in the 100 Miles race. All women DNFd. Including Celeste Teo and Irish Glorioso, who both twisted their ankles in the same descent during Sthe first night.

Singapore's Chris Timms also took his first ever ATM race win on the 60km - the second points race for the ATM Championship ranking. The man-in-form led from the start and finished in 12h07'09", indicating once again what a tough course UTOP has. Timms preceeded Alex Tilley by nearly 40 minutes with Mohd Ammar Md Yazid taking third. Incidentally, nothing changed from the first checkpoint after 8,5km onwards. Kok Lam Yong was fourth. Zulharif Zakaria is fifth.

The women’s 60 km race winner was Siew Chen Tan in 17h33. She was pushed forward to the finish line by Peg San Tan who finished second 17 minutes later. In third place and completing the podium is Seoh Ling Tan. Also for Siew Chen Tan it was the first time she took top honours in an ATM points race.

The 100 km Grandmaster-only race (i.e no championship ranking points) was won by Gustin Tiam and Norlela Ismail.

Event Director Seow Kong Ng with 100 miles victor Aqmal Adzmi

Siew Chen Tan took the women’s 60km win

Peg San Tan was not too far behind the race winner in 2nd place

Chris Timms continued his fine performance streak with his first ATM race win on the 60km