Impressive Si Hieu wins VTM as Mirar cracks

A very cold edition of VTM with temperatures barely rising above ten degrees celsius saw two impressive race winners in Nguyen Si Hieu and Giang Thi Linh. Both were not necessarily surprising, yet the way they accomplished their feats deserves a big round of applause. They also opened their Season 10 points account with 500 , which can be significant further down the line with the season’s championship final anticipated to take place in October. More than 2000 runners took part in this year’s Vietnam Trail Marathon in Moc Chau, with over 300 on the longest distance category of 70km - also the category that offered points for the ATM Championship ranking and Grandmaster Quest.

The men’s race was expected to be quite open with several local runners up against the young coming-man Godwin Mirar from Philippines and France’s Gaetan Morizur for the prizes. Mirar and Nguyen Si Hieu were fastest out of the blocks and had a small advantage over Nhon Trong and Le Quang Hoi, with Adam Nguyen Tien Vo, Gaetan Morizur and Tu Do a little further back. Tomohiro Mizukoshi, fresh from a 4th place at Prenn Trail Summit three weeks ago, was flirting with the top ten. Over halfway, on the way to CP 5, Mirar arrived first by himself with a couple of minutes advantage over Si Hieu. The latter had not yet given up, however. Gaetan Morizur was moving up the leaderboard and was beginning to threaten the leading duo as well, as Le Quang Hoi, Nguyen Tien Vo and Tu Do lost a bit of contact with the fight for podium. The last 20km proved dramatic for 24-year-old Godwin Mirar, as the cold temperatures really got to him and resulted in cramps and an overall drop in performance. Nguyen Si Hieu came back to him by CP 6 and opened up a gap immediately aftewards. Meanwhile, Morizur kept on closing in and would soon also catch and overtake the fading Mirar. When Si Hieu heard that Morizur was chasing him down, it turned out he still had an extra gear and upped the pace again himself. That settled it. He took his 4th career ATM race win with Morizur in second. Nhon Trong also had a strong end of the race and still caught the unfortunate Filipino to complete the podium in third place. Newcomer Le Quang Hoi did well to secure fifth, just behind Mirar at the finish and just ahead of Tien Vo.

The women’s race also saw three, four runners competing tightly for most of the race. However, Giang Thi Linh was always in the lead by herself. Nguyen Nguyet and Malaysia-based Filipino Ritzy Amor were just a few minutes behind and kept the pressure on, even when Linh later admitted she had no idea they were so close. Nguyen Nguyet would more or less keep pace with Linh until the finish to score a great second place. Amor, just like her compatriot Mirar, struggled in the final 20km with the temperature and also lost the podium still to Tran Trang. It’s not always ‘too hot’, it can also be ‘too cold’ for some runners…

The next Vietnamese points race is the Vietnam Ultra Marathon in Mai Chau on the second weekend of March.