Following MMTF last weekend, the hard-fought battle to get into Team Malaysia for the Asia Trail Master Championship Final has come to a conclusion with some dramatic last-minute changes. There’s no Malaysian contenders signed up for the Cordillera Mountain Ultra and Izu Trail Journey in the next two weekends, so the ranking is basically final. In the end, the ten Malaysian men and women will be the top favourites to win the team championship, and some of them can also challenge for the individual ATM Championship title and the podium. In particular, Milton Amat will find Mount Apo in Davao, Philippines, very much to his liking.

Several runners such as Wilsen Singgin, Muhamad Affindi, Jeffery Budin, Sally Yap, Halimatun Sa’adiah and Norlela Ismail were already guaranteed of their team spot before MMTF last weekend, but for the remaining spots it was very tight between a number of athletes. The biggest ‘losers’, if we can use that term, are Beng Siong Lee and Trisha Yuen, who both dropped out of the top five and are not even first reserve. Beng Siong Lee suffered from illness going into the 90k race at MMTF and was basically already beaten before the start. He fought bravely, but got ranked outside the top 50 for which there are no more championship points. Also Amir Zaki was sick and struggled a lot. The winner of Doi Nhok 50k in Thailand three weeks ago finished as 25th last Saturday, which gave him 160 championship points and that proved to be just enough to stay ahead of Daved Simpat (2nd on the 50km at MMTF) and Aqmal Adzmi (joint 3rd on the 90km at MMTF). The difference between Zaki and the other two: he finished 4 ATM races compared to 3 for the other two, and ATM 2022 has a ‘best-four-count’ system. That is also the story in the women’s category: the combination of having finished 4 ATM points races with a great result is what you gets you in the top five. Especially in Malaysia where the men’s number five, Amir Zaki, collected no fewer than 1415 points and the women’s number five, Izzah Hazirah, 1150 points. You don’t even get there with two race wins.

The six reserves for Team Malaysia, in case someone in the top five cannot make it to the Mount Apo Sky Race on 17 December, are Daved Simpat, Aqmal Adzmi, Beng Siong Lee in the men’s, and Sum Mei Soh, Trisha Yuen and Wan Azzizah Wan Achmad in the women’s.

It should be noted that Muhamad Affindi is 2nd overall behind Japan’s Hisashi Kitamura in the 2022 ATM points ranking and Sally Yap is even the overall leader in the ATM women’s ranking today with two more points races to go. Both competed in four ATM races this season.

All details on the ATM Championship Final can be read here.

Team Malaysia for the ATM Final: contenders for individual and team title