When Ryan Sandes received an invitation in his mailbox from his running team, Salomon International, to take part in a 100-kilometre trail run in Hong Kong, he thought he was dreaming.
'I was surprised to put it mildly. Hong Kong and trail running? I thought it must be some mistake. I knew Hong Kong was full of skyscrapers and is a big and busy city, but trail running?' laughed Sandes.
The 29-year-old South African arrived Friday to take part in this weekend's Vibram Hong Kong 100 - a 100 kilometre trail run with over 750 athletes from 28 countries taking part.
The only man to win all of the 4 Deserts races, Sandes will be among the favourites to win the endurance event which begins in Pak Tam Chung in Sai Kung on Saturday, traverses tough trails with an elevation of up to 4,500 metres, before finishing on Route Twisk, at the Rotary Club Park in Tai Mo Shan.
But Sandes won't have it all his own way with defending champion William Davies and Dan Parr - a winner of the Gobi Desert Race in 2010 and the Sahara Desert Race last year - carrying Hong Kong's challenge, plus a strong contingent of other overseas runners. That includes the top three in this year's Annapurna 100 in Nepal - Aite Tamang, Sudip Kulung and Bed Bahadur Sunuwar, all from Nepal - China's premier ultra marathon runner, Yun Yanqiao, and last year's runner-up, Jeremy Ritcey.
As a schoolboy growing up in Cape Town, Sandes was drawn to the sports traditionally favoured by South Africans - rugby and cricket. It was peer pressure which drew him to running.
'I was never any good at cricket so I played a lot of rugby at school. I was a flanker, but then I stopped growing physically and I became too small for rugby. In university, I surfed a lot and only took up running after some friends convinced me to join them in a marathon. I found out I enjoyed running a lot,' Sandes said.