At 3am tomorrow morning, reigning Asia Trail Master women’s champion Hau Ha will start her new trail campaign in Dalat. The 5th edition of the Dalat Ultra Trail is on the schedule, a race that she comfortably won a year ago in her first appearance on the ATM circuit. Since then, Hau Ha has only still gotten better - not in the least as she has now gained valuable competitive experiences including an overall win in Vietnam Mountain Marathon 100km last September, and a coming-back-from-behind to claim the championship title on Mount Apo in Philippines in December. Especially that last performance showed everyone that she can also grit her teeth together when the going gets tougher-than-expected. Mentally not recovered from a 50k race in Thailand a weekend before, Hau Ha was left behind and put under severe pressure by Vanja Cnops in the early parts of the Apo title race. However, when at the end of the day we look back at the race result she finished 6th overall and three hours ahead of the second-placed woman Sally Yap, and also in front of Vietnam’s male trail reference Quang Tran! If one had not followed the live race coverage, one would have thought it had just been another ‘walk in the park’ for Hau Ha.

Nevertheless, after Mt Apo she took a welcome break and she has started 2023 with a few road runs, including a road marathon in Ho Chi Minh City, where she beat an international women’s field and scored a new personal best of 2 hours 56 minutes. This Saturday’s Dalat Ultra Trail will be her first ultra distance of the new season.

The event has actually increased the race distance from 70k to 85k this year. That’s the points race for the ATM Championship ranking and the Grandmaster Quest. Combined with all the shorter distances on the event schedule, the organisers are expecting more than 7000 participants! That’s massive and yet another indication that trail running is nowhere else more popular in Southeast Asia than Vietnam.

Hau Ha will meet a number of familiar faces from last year’s ATM scene, including Alessandro Sherpa, Yuta Matsuyama, Gaetan Morizur and Deric Lau. Sherpa has been in Vietnam already for nearly two weeks and may find the pine forest trails very much to his liking. His form at the end of last season was great, with a 3rd place on the podium in the Apo title race as evidence. Yuta Matsuyama is a double winner of Ultra Trail Chiang Mai and has been a consistent top 20 finisher in Japan’s highly competitive Izu Trail Journey. Also for him, the cooler temperatures in Dalat will suit him a lot - knowing how he suffered in the heat of Al Ula in Saudi Arabia a year ago. Gaetan Morizur is the winner of last year, for sure he will give the two others a run for their money. And Singapore’s Deric Lau was one of the exciting newcomers on the ATM scene in 2022. Let’s see how he fares in Vietnam.

A precise start list was unavailable to us at the time of writing, so we apologise in advance for missing anybody important.

Dalat Ultra Trail with Hau Ha, Sherpa, Matsuyama and Morizur