Wismoyono wins tough Great Malaya Trail

While all the Championship and Grandmaster Quest runners were focused on Ultra Trail Chiang Rai in Thailand last weekend, a 2020 Asia Trail Master Candidate Race unfolded in Malaysia at the same time. The Great Malaya Trail lived up on its pre-race promise of being ‘probably the toughest’ ultra in the country, and the very wet weather early on was not even needed for that. The 100 km had 6600m of elevation gain and went through three states: Selangor - Pahang - Negeri Sembilan. The eventual race winner - former Asia Trail Master Champion Arief Wismoyono from Bandung, Indonesia - needed 22 hours and 20 minutes to complete the course. As Arief said himself afterwards, ‘harder than anything he has done before in Malaysia’ , and he even compares it with some of the renowned extreme trail running events in his own country. Fandhi Achmad, also a known mountaineer and technical trail runner from Indonesia, came in second twenty minutes later.

It is clear that the Great Malaya Trail appeals to the hardcore trail runner. Only 19 finishers on the 100 km of roughly 100 starters, and only two women. However, the finishing rate on the 50 km was much higher at even 80%. The extra bits on the double distance therefore clearly seem to make the difference. Participants were also happy with the event organisation and services. The experienced event organisers from Team Pacat did have a hard time as well as heavy rainfall forced them to cancel the short distance categories of 30 km and 16 km - usually the categories with most paying registrants. It is very brave of a trail organiser to make that decision and Team Pacat deserves a lot of credit for that.

Ahmad Aqua Bin Othman completed the men’s podium of the 100k in 24h50. The two women into the finish were Sammy Yiaw in 30h49 and Izzah Hazirah in 33h26.

Despite all the challenges faced by the organisation, the Great Malaya Trail made a solid debut and those who like the rough’n tough will look forward to the next edition, now scheduled for end of September 2020. It is not yet decided whether or not the event becomes a points race in the 2020 Asia Trail Master Championship. All Malaysian slots on our ATM calendar are currently occupied, but one or two are yet to be guaranteed, so stay tuned for news on this one.

2015 ATM Champion Arief Wismoyono is still going strong on the toughest of terrains