The 2023 edition of the 100km long Mount Apo Sky Race in Santa Cruz saw two wonderful race winners: Isaiah Paraiso and Julie Ann Morales. At the finish line on the beach, both had a significant gap on their nearest rivals. For upcoming talent Paraiso it was his first ever ATM race win, for Julie Ann Morales already the third, after The Punisher (2022) and MUSPO Bukidnon 100 (2023).

The men’s race initially had a nice dual between 24-year-old Paraioso and the ten years older Jevie Cagatin. Florence Alave, Jomarc Ferrer and Kik Russel Suello were still keeping up as well. Pre-race favourite and last year’s 100k winner Yoyong Sacayle was a last-minute DNS, still feeling a bit fatigued after his excellent performance in the ATM Final in Indonesia just a week before. Also ATM Finalist Sean Aying did not find the legs to compete for the podium and would eventually finish in 8th place. Former Mt Apo Sky Race winner Ronnie Torlao had to be content with 9th place as well.

Isaiah Paraiso made the difference primarily in the descent of Mt Apo and the ensuing runable part back to the finish, in this beach to summit out-and-back race. He came home in 15h18, which eventually was an impressive 2,5 hours ahead of Cagatin. The latter was chased down heavily by Alave in the final sector, but held onto second place by a mere two minutes. For both it was the first ATM race podium as well. In fact, Cagatin managed to complete this race 2h48 faster than a year ago: quite an improvement!

Julie Ann Morales had the upper hand on main challengers Shally Yuson and Manilyn Mamugay from the beginning. She reportedly had a half hour gap on the summit, which she then extended big time on the way back to the finish. Morales came in in 22h07. In fact, Christine Montuya managed to grab second place in 26h08’ after overtaking Mamugay and Yuson in the descent and the way back to the finish.

The Mt Apo Sky Race was one of two opening points races of Season IX of our ATM Championship series. The new season will end already in September, hence.

Special thanks to and photo credits for: Florence Alave, Jerrson Botea.

First ATM race victory for Isaiah Paraiso

Second place for Jevie Cagatin

Great podium for Florence Alave

Julie Ann Morales: a solid win on Mt Apo

Shally Yuson

The 5th edition of The Punisher, a pretty nice trail race on Babak Samal Island off the coast of Davao CIty on Mindanao in the southern Philippines, could see the crowning of the new men’s Asia Trail Master Champion. John Ellis decided not to sit around and wait till the big ATM FInal in Malaysia in a fortnight and try to wrap things up already tomorrow. To achieve that he must do one thing he actually is pretty good at: winning the race! It would boost his total ATM points tally to 2725 (see our news piece earlier today), which would be out of reach for his two remaining title rivals Hisashi Kitamura and Milton Amat.

However, Kitamura wouldn’t be the ‘Karate Kit’ if he were going to let that happen without a fight. The Kuala Lumpur-based Japanese changed his plans for the weekend and re-directed his flight from Osaka to Davao with the purpose of giving Ellis once again a good solid run for his money. Those two have been going head-to-head for most of the season, mostly with Ellis gaining the upper hand at the end, but their epic battle in Ultra Trail Chiang Rai is likely to be remembered as the ‘race of the season’. Kitamura made the Hong Kong-based Australian suffer like hardly ever seen before. Tomorrow on the 80km course on Babak Samal, it’s the rematch! It matters for Kitamura, because he cannot afford Ellis to add more points to his total at all or his own championship chances are virtually over. The race course is generally quite runable - which suits Kitamura - but has its share of technical sections as well to pay attention to.

The Uglow ace may get some help, however, as one local runner is keen to make a name for himself on home soil this weekend: Arnie Macaneras. He was the man who bravely followed John Ray Onifa at CMU for a good while before breaking down. Macaneras learnt from his over-enthusiasm in the Cordillera and came back on Mt Talinis to push Kristian Joergensen to the limit. It is fair to say that Macaneras has the potential to be a spoiler for Ellis’ ambition to conclude the ATM Championship. The young Filipino has nothing to lose and wants two big scalps on his trail record. It will be interesting to see how the two ATM title contenders are going to deal with him.

Other podium contenders in the men’s race this weekend if the dice rolls right for them are Michael McLean, last year’s race winner Rexell Aguirre and who knows Grandmasters Richard Akol and John Eruel Oquino, the latter not for nothing the number 8 in the ATM Championship ranking this year.

In the women’s Punisher 80k. race we will be looking out for Hong Kong’s Jcy Ho. The Oxsitis ambassador will aim for her second ATM race win of the season after scoring the 70k at Vietnam Mountain Marathon last September. Jcy Ho is 9th in the Championship standings and not a title contender, but as she will also run TNF MMTF in two weeks could still earn herself a final spot in the top five by the end of the season.

Jcy will be competing for the win and the podium against Rhea Batac, recently podium in the V Trail Laos, former Punisher race winner Manilyn Mamugay Grandmaster Cheryl Bihag and Karen Widmer from Switzerland.

Just a month ago at UTCR, Ellis and Kitamura ran each other to pieces. Will they do so again now with the ATM Championship title very much at stake on Babak Samal Island this Saturday?

John Ellis, also known as a co-founder of the popular T8 brand

He enjoys the competition with his “idol” Ellis a lot, but he certainly prefers to beat him too: Kitamura!

Popular local runner Manilyn Mamugay is a former winner of The Punisher.

After her impressive series of performances in September, Team Oxsitis’ Jcy Ho is a victory candidate this weekend as well in her bid to climb into the ATM Championship top five by year’s end