SIngapore's BSK Marina Loopers complete ATM 500 in 16 hours
They had kind of announced it beforehand and they put their money where they mouths were: Singapore’s BSK Marina Loopers completed the inaugural ATM 500 Team Run Challenge as first of nearly 250 registered teams of four runners each. A few hours later it also turned out to be the only team to accomplish this amazing feat on a swelteringly hot day in the city. Rie Sugaya, Philippe Daniel, Yannick Duppich and Vincent Casanova delivered an outstanding ultrarunning performance and each completed an equal share of 125 km in less than 16 hours. In fact, the lady in the house, Japan’s Rie Sugaya, proved quickest in 13:34:08!
In the afternoon, reports were coming in of a few more teams with ambition to fulfill the 500k requirement by 10 pm. Team MKRC Boleh! in Kuala Lumpur, for instance, with seasoned runners Stephen Dundon, Chris Koelma, Thibault Bertrand and Jenny Holloway. Also the Filipino squad led by Neo Gentoleo - Vitargo - , Indonesia’s Team Arjuno with Thimo Kilberth (who climbed and descended Mt Batur along his way!) and Malaysia’s Team Challenger with Mohamed Affindi looked strong. Eventually they all got stuck around 420-400 KM. At cut-off time, it was suddenly another Singaporean Team that came closest to the 500k mark: the BSK Underdogs! The team consisting of Paulina Svoboda, Jerome Besnaud, Yan Moreno and Bernabe Sanchez ran 448 km! That means they only need a 15K “cool down” each to finish the ATM 500 tomorrow.
The first edition of ATM 500, dubbed “Run Asia, Run Virtual’ , is a creation by Sportlicious Malaysia in Penang and Asia Trail Master. Teams of four runners, of which one must be a woman, are required to complete a distance of 500 km in 14 days. Each day has maximum 18 running hours, subject to local regulations concerning the covid 19 crisis. After little more than a week of promotion, a shocking number of nearly 1000 people and 250 teams signed up for the challenge.
The ‘virtual’ event had not been designed as a pure race, but instead lays emphasis on the mass-participation aspect. The corona situation has led to a wide range of different measures set up by country governments, so that elites in a couple of places are seriously restricted in their options to compete for any potential top result. Nevertheless, we noted some outstanding performances on day 1.
The reigning women’s ATM Champion Veronika Vadovicova ran her 76K share of her “Trail Girls on Fire” team in a time of 7h27. That’s on a day with lots of rain and even a thunderstorm at the get-go early in the morning. Her teammates were clearly motivated to give it their best shot, too. Estzer Csillag - winner of TMMT 2019 - ran 8h07’ for 75K, Nikki Han did 78K in 8h27’ and experienced miler Habiba Benahmed took the largest share of the team with 100k in a time of 11h28’. Trail Girls on Fire is indeed a women’s-only team and sits in 10th place in the day’s ranking.
There’s been many wonderful achievements by individuals today that we cannot name them all, but it does strike us that the two gender categories were very well in balance! Other than Veronika’s team mentioned above, and Rie Sugaya as fastest of the ‘winning’ team in Singapore, in Thailand we saw both Cartoon Wipawee and Montha Suntornwit putting in over 100K runs, and so did Indonesia’s Christin Mutia and Philippines’ Ann Jilian Pulanco.
Further analysis of some known names on the ATM circuit, shows us that somehow John Ellis and Alessandro Sherpa ran virtually side-by-side for 71 KM despite being in different countries unaware of each other. Both locked in great times, too: Ellis did 73km in 5h54’ and Sherpa 71km in 5h52’. Let’s also mention that 2015 ATM Champion Arief Wismoyono had a quick day with 83km in 8:12:41. Over in Philippines, Kyle Antolin also managed a sub-10 hour 100K today.
UNOFFICIAL TOP 15 RANKING AFTER DAY 1
BSK Marina Loopers - 500 KM
BSK Underdogs - 448,5 KM
The Challengers - 418 KM
Vitargo PH - 408 KM
Arjuno - 405 KM
MKRC Boleh! - 400 KM
Ba-Tam Ultra Runners - 365 KM
THAI - 356 KM
ASIA 1 - 339 KM
Trail Girls on Fire - 330 KM
Mace - 326, 5 KM
Hallasan - 313 KM
Heal As One Runners 303 KM
OCR Pilipinas 2 303 KM
18 teams have already managed more than 250 of the 500 km yesterday. Of those, Sherpa’s Angels are clearly the fastest at the moment. With an average speed of 11.13 km/h for 252 km, they are nearly 2 km/h quicker than... Trail Girls on Fire! The all-ladies team around Veronika Vadovicova is second fastest with an average speed of 9.30km/h over 330 km. In third place in this side-ranking comes Team Arjuno from Indonesia with an avs of 9.20 km.h over 405 km. Team OCR Pilipinas 2 is next with 8.79 km/h over 303 km. Next are the BSK Underdogs from Singapore with 8.66 km/h over 448 km, who thus actually as a team ran at a faster pace than the BSK Marina Loopers... but couldn't keep it up for the full 500km. In fifth is Team Hallasan from South Korea with 8.48 km/h, followed by the winning team of ATM 500, BSK Marina Loopers, with an avs of 8.43 km/h.
It was bloody hot in Singapore today
John Ellis and David Longo started out in very wet weather this morning. They did not have the ambition to complete the challenge in one day
Also Fredelyn Alberto was looking at a lot of water as she got ready in the early morning in Hong Kong
Paulina Svoboda and het BSK Underdogs have the 500K mark within reach