After an all-out battle on the final day of the inaugural 7 Missions team running challenge, the T8 Kings of Quarantine all-star team overtook the tactical masterminds of Malaysian MKRC Boleh at the last minute, thanks to an awesome performance by 2018 Asia Trail Master Champion Alessandro Sherpa in Lombardy, Italy. The T8 team had been put on the backfoot since the OTSO Hour last Wednesday, when the MKRC guys revealed a clever elevation strategy to gain the upper hand on the intrinsically quicker T8 runners. Going into Sunday’s marathon mission, the gap between the two teams had come down to some 25 minutes but that was still significant given nobody knew each other’s strategy. For most of the day, the situation looked promising for the Malaysian leaders in the classification, as Yakov Kozlov ran a 2:54:33 marathon and the otherwise dominant Jeff Campbell of T8 had to settle today for a 2:55:57. Campbell nevertheless is the winner of the men’s Cheetah Cup, winning four of the five disciplines (half marathon, 1 Hour, 10km, 5km). MKRC then decided to wait and keep their other members’ marathon performances quiet, not to give their rivals a clear target. That tactic motivated Ryan Whelan to run the fastest 42.2 km of his life in the afternoon in Hong Kong around the Happy Valley horserace track. 2:38:41 was even 2 minutes better than the best time until that moment set by Hisashi Kitamura of Team Uglow +A. Once again, the Karate KIt has to settle for first runner-up of the day. His team ran excellent on Sunday with Yuta Matsuyama scoring 2:54:47 and Asuka Nakajima 3:11:49. But as Rie Sugaya was a DNS due to another racing engagement in Singapore, it meant the team would settle for fourth and second in the mixed gender category behind Australia’s Team Imodium. Gary Mullins of that team ran a superb 2:52:33 and Michelle McAdam was even the best female marathon runner of the day in 3:05:12. Team Imodium certainly also had something left in the tank!

After sunset in Singapore, the remaining MKRC team members were released, showing Chris Goodwin with 3:19 and 434 hm, and Nicolas Terrien with 3:23 and 423 hm. Pierre Victor Morales just ran this mission to get the 42-minute standard bonus for completing the mission with all team members. Strong runs by Goodwin and Terrien, but would it be good enough to keep the T8 team behind? Brian McFlynn’s result came through and it was a 4:06:28 with 388 hm… not good enough for the challengers! Brian , of course, had bad luck all week with cold temperatures and snow in Switzerland, where is currently residing. And so it all came down to one man, and that man was Alessandro Sherpa, currently in his native Lombardy region in Italy.

It’s in these situations Sherpa brings out the best of himself as an athlete. And man, did he deliver. Just before 10 pm, he submitted his result on strava…3:20:55 with 1505 hm of elevation gain! An amazing achievement by the 2018 Asia Trail Master Champion, especially after a week in which he also did not save his energy on those shorter distances. It was enough for his team to take command of the general classification and push the MKRC Boleh team down to second place by over 22 minutes at the end of the day!

provisional results mission VII: t8 marathon

the 7 missions general classification (provisional)

cheetah cup women final

cheetah cup men final

high trail 9 peaks ulju mountain goat trophy