Ultramarathon de Sai Kung: sign-tampering, disqualifications and chaos mar event’s debut

Saturday night proved that organising an ultramarathon often comes with complications. And on the debut of the 100-kilometre XTE Ultramarathon de Sai Kung, run along the beautiful Sai Kung Country Park, there were many – led by a disgruntled runner who felt robbed of victory.

Champion Allen Ng, who finished with a time of 13 hours, 50 minutes and 36 seconds, said someone had tampered with an arrow sign near checkpoint five that caused a lot of racers to make a crucial wrong turn.

“I would say I ran an extra 3km because of that,” said the 34-year-old Ng, who won the first 100km race of his career. “Luckily, I had a GPS watch and I was quite familiar with the route so I didn’t get completely lost.”

Unfortunately, the same could not be said for Huang Guorong, who had finished second but was disqualified for missing checkpoint five.

Huang lives in Guangzhou and was unfamiliar with the trail. He also decided not to use a GPS watch as he thought the marker ribbons and signs would be sufficient.

The decision proved disastrous for Huang, who was well ahead of everyone else when he took the wrong turn near checkpoint five.