Championship Update: Kitamura early sole leader

The 2020 season took off with a considerable bang on the third weekend of January with the Tahura Trail in Bandung, Indonesia, but then the corona virus situation took over the headlines. The 9 Dragons Ultra - the Hong Kong SuperTrail - got cancelled and plenty of other events, such as the Cordillera Mountain Ultra and the Dalat Ultra Trail have been postponed to June. EcoTrail Al Ula in Saudi Arabia and Ultra Trail Koh Chang in Thailand took place as scheduled, as well as the Vietnamese Candidate Race Cau Dat Farm Ultra. But now, governments in many countries have imposed a stop to most events.

As such, the next ATM points race will only take place at the end of April, more than two months from now. That will be a weekend featuring both Korea 50K for the fast runners and Mt Apo Sky Race 100 in the southern Philippines for the ultra mountain runners. In between we will have two more Filipino 2021 ATM Candidate Races with the Mt Kalatungan Trail Ultra on MIndanao and the Alicia Ultra on Bohol island.

The situation has left many people scratching their heads. All those meticulously planned programmes have gone up in smoke. But, it is what it is. Q1 has thus already concluded and after three points races in the 2020 season, basically only Hisashi Kitamura has already managed to run and finish two races. He scored third in both Tahura Trail and UTKC, good enough for 850 points and the lead in the ATM Championship ranking. In the women’s, the points lead is shared between the three race winners so far: Charlotte Taquet (Tahura Trail), Amy Sproston (EcoTrail Al Ula) and Fredelyn Alberto (UT Koh Chang).

Alessandro Sherpa won the Cau Dat Farm Ultra, the Candidate Race near Dalat in Vietnam, and looked every bit as quick and strong in beating Nhon Trong as in Tahura Trail, where he beat Kitamura and only had to tolerate 50K King Jeff Campbell ahead of him. As Campbell may have obligations outside of ATM as well, Sherpa looks like the moral winner of Q1 in terms of the Championship contenders. Regarding the women’s Championship contenders, Charlotte Taquet was unbothered, really, in her run to victory in the Indonesian season opener. Ruth Theresia looked fast and solid in Al Ula finishing second behind seasoned international Amy Sproston. Her best performance since becoming ATM champion in 2018. But Hong Kong based Filipino Fredelyn Alberto was quite an impressive winner in Thailand. Finishing fifth overall, right behind the fourth male, Alberto showed significant progress compared to the end of last season. Alberto was less than one hour behind of Hisashi Kitamura over 100 km of UTKC! Admittedly, Karate Kit did not have his best day but she also finished more than 3 hours ahead of local star Montha Suntornwit. And she complained of a sore ankle after a dodgy step only a mere 7 km into the race. Certainly, Fredelyn Alberto sent a message to all female ATM Championship contenders.

In conclusion, Q1 was (too) short, but it did reveal a few hints of what may be to come in the remainder of the 2020 ATM Championship season.

Alessandro Sherpa looks as crisp as ever in the early weeks of 2020

Fredelyn Alberto has clearly made progress while training in the off-season