HK100 ultramarathon set to start World Trail Majors as 3,000 runners tackle 103km, 56km and 33km races
- Chinese contenders in 103km race include last year’s top two – HK100 record-holder You Peiquan and Zhao Jiaju, who has the highest ITRA Performance Index score
- Women’s race features Wu Yuanyuan, who last year won the ‘Grand Sam’ of Third, Half and main event
The men’s and women’s 103km (64-mile) trail races start at 8am on Saturday and will see 1,800 athletes run parts of the MacLehose Trail before climbing Tai Mo Shan, Hong Kong’s highest peak.
Smaller versions of the race, the Third (33km) and the Half (56km), will take place on Thursday and Friday respectively.
This year, 114 athletes have signed up for the “Grand Sam”, in which runners will complete the Third, the Half and the HK100 on consecutive days. The Grand Sam debuted as part of the HK100 in 2023 and all 10 mixed-gender runners finished.
The name refers to Sam Tam, the first runner to sign up for the grand slam option. It also sounds like the Cantonese word for three, saam.
In 2020, You Peiquan smashed the HK100 record, finishing with a time of 10 hours, 17 seconds, about half an hour faster than he clocked last year.
“I am looking forward to racing at the top level again on a course that suits me and which I have really enjoyed in the past,” he said.
After last year’s race, You, of mainland China, said he felt he could finish it in under 10 hours, providing the weather was cool. There is a 30-hour cut-off time.
“I’m trying to get my third win and can’t wait to get going,” he added.
However, You will face stiff competition from countryman Zhao Jiaju, last year’s runner-up, whose rating of 904 on the ITRA Performance Index (the official ranking of trail runners recognised by World Athletics, marked against a maximum of 1,000 points) is the highest in the field.
The United States’ Tyler Green, whose score is 873, arrived in Hong Kong early to study the route and acclimatise. He said he was “thrilled” to be part of the race, which he described as “scary-fast”.
Other notables include Nepal’s Tirtha Tamang and Bed Sunuwar, respectively the 2014 winner and runner-up.
In the women’s race, Hong Kong-based Hungarian Eszter Csillag and Poland’s Dominika Stelmach are hotly tipped to battle it out.
Stelmach holds the women’s world record for distance covered in 12 hours, having run 152.6km a year ago.
Csillag last month won the Izu Trail Journey (68km) in Japan, and last year placed third at the Western States Endurance Run in California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains.
Their biggest threat may be China’s Wu Yuanyuan, who won the Grand Sam last year – besting both men’s and women’s runners – by placing first in the Third, second in the Half and seventh in the HK100. This year, Wu has only the HK100 to complete, so may be fresher.
Last year’s champion and debutant, Hong Kong doctor Cheung Man-yee, will not feature this time. She is competing in the Standard Chartered Hong Kong Marathon the following day.
The best home hopes are Wong Ki-chun, Kimmy Leung and Angie Yan. Wong won last year’s Dark 45, a 45km night race, while Leung finished sixth in the last HK100. She also teamed up with Yan to win Oxfam Trailwalker (98km) in November.
The World Major Trails series is made up of nine races. The other eight races are Madeira Island Ultra Trail (Portugal), Black Canyon Ultras (US), the North Face Transgrancanaria (Spain), Mt Fuji 100 (Japan), Swiss Canyon Trail (Switzerland), South Downs Way (England), Quebec Mega Trail (Canada) and RMB Ultra-Trail Cape Town (South Africa).
