News round-up: MUSPO targets 2022

Here’s our second brief news round-up as the global covid 19 pandemic continues to restrict travel and event organisation opportunities. It is now exactly one year since the last international points race for the Asia Trail Master Championship. That was UTKC, aka Ultra Trail Koh Chang, in Thailand. A year ago, Fredelyn Alberto looked stronger than ever in winning the women’s tough 100k race, and a weakened Hisashi Kitamura, due to sickness, had to content himself with third place behind the surprisingly strong Filipino Arnie Macaneras and last-minute winner Paul Dunn. Ryan Whelan won the 70K for men, and Elviemma Catabay completed the Filipino success in Thailand that day by taking victory in the women’s 70km. UTKC saw some unexpected and amazing runs by people who had been working hard for months to reach that level of performance. Hopefully, these runners have not given up during the pandemic and will harvest more fruit from their training labour as soon as competition resumes.

In the Philippines, sadly, this may take still several months. This week, Philip Anthony of the MUSPO event at Lake Apo on MIndanao informed us they have not received the permission from the authorities to hold the scheduled event this July. Rather than postponing by a few months and see what happens, the organisation has decided to shift focus immediately towards 2022. MUSPO is sponsored by HOKA ONE ONE and is an eagerly anticipated young event with a 100k that shows a good balance between runable and technical terrain.

A formal decision on the Negros Oriental event set in early June, Puncak Tanawan Mountain Run, is expected within the next two weeks. The other two Filipino events on the ATM Calendar, Cordillera Mountain Ultra and The Punisher are scheduled back-to-back at the end of this year.

In Malaysia, the new Candidate Race Jagoi Heritage Run in Sarawak has been postponed. Originally set for April, the 50k event will now take place on the first weekend of November. Another Candidate Race, the Bali Volcano Race - which offers a stage race and individual race categories - is back on the programme for the second weekend of December.

Theoretically speaking, the first points race event on the calendar remains Korea 50k on 22/23 May.

Paul Dunn, Arnie Macaneras and Hisashi Kitamura. A fantastic podium at UTKC 100 now one year ago

Elviemma and Fredelyn: Filipinos dominated the women’s 100k and 70k races at UTKC

Ryan Whelan scored his maiden ATM points race victory on the 70k at UTKC last year