Autumn in the southeastern mountains around Uljusan in South Korea can be cold already and that’s what runners experienced in this year’s edition of Ulju Trail Nine Peaks. The 9 Peaks race, with 121 km and well over 9000 hm elevation gain, is a genuine test of physical and mental strength. Korean runners completed the male and female podiums, with Junghyun Lim and Sunyeon Lee celebrated as race winners. The 5 Peaks of 45 km went to Ko Minchul and Hyunja Kim. Pre-race favourites Kim Jisu and Kim Jisub both did not start.

Junghyun Lim was in the lead for most of the second half of the tough race and had an advantage of more than one hour over Changsik Choi. Sung Jin Jang and Jong San Park were battling for podium with the former taking it. The women’s 9 Peaks actually saw Jung Soon Park on top of the leaderboard, but she got disqualified for apparently missing CP 9. Also Paulina Svoboda got disqualfied over halfway for not having her power bank on her as a mandatory item. Yonok Song claimed second and Ji Ho Hwang third place.

Ko Minchul grabbed his first ATM victory after two podium places, the last one this season in Korea 50k (third). Ko Minchul is therefore qualified for the ATM Championship Final. Kim Jongyol was second sixteen minutes later and Gyojeong Gu third another eight minutes later. Fourth overall and first woman was Hyunja Kim after an impressive performance. Sun Hwa Lee was second and Boyoung Jan third. The latter is now also automatically ensured of a spot in Team Korea for the ATM Final.

Singapore’s Trung Nguyen and Deric Lau were running in the lower half of the top ten for most of the 9 Peaks race. Trung scored 8th place in the end, and Lau 12th. Also Nguyen Hong Son from Vietnam and Takashi Wakiya got themselves into the top ten as non-Korean runners.

UTNP in Korea: cold but beautiful