KUALA LUMPUR, July 2 — Next Sunday, Malaysia will be the fourth country in the Asia-Pacific region and the first in Southeast Asia to host the inaugural Spartan Asia Pacific Championship (APAC) series.
The fourth series of the world’s largest obstacle race event will see the Super series heat take place in the administrative capital of Putrajaya.
“The APAC series has been a huge success with world-class events across Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea and next stop Malaysia” said Spartan Managing Director Michael Goodwin.
In the fourth event of the APAC series, elite racers from around the world will be looking to bulk up their points before the final championship Beast race in Perth, Australia this November.
Malaysia’s very own champions Colleen Augustin and Saddam Pittli are looking forward to battling it out on the course on their home ground before the Beast series in Perth.
In the APAC series, elite racers are awarded points based on their rankings from the five events of the championship series.
Racers’ points are calculated based on the completion of each race. For example, winners who finish first for each race will collect 300 points.
For both men and women categories, every 250 participants with most the amount of points will move on to the following series.
Finally, the contender with the most amount of points from each category will emerge as winner after completing the last of the championship series in Perth.
However, for each qualifying series, top five male and female will walk away with cash prize and trophies.
Currently, Augustin is ranked third in the women’s category with 892 points, just eight points behind Australia’s Jade Ross.
For the men’s category, two Malaysians are in the top ten ranking. Eugene Tham is in the fifth place with 809 points, 86 points behind Australia’s Brendan Hunt. Dallan Cheah is another Malaysian, who is in the 10th spot with 483 points.
Seasonal racer Saddam has, however, been bogged down with injuries and thus is not in the top 10 ranking.
“After a disappointing campaign in the first three races of the APAC Championship series, Saddam is hoping that home ground advantage will spur him on to come back from a nagging ankle injury,” Spartan Malaysia assistant race director Douglas Lau said.
This round, Lau said, Spartan Malaysia was also inviting some 50 kids with special needs to try out the Spartan Junior course in Putrajaya.
At the Super series, which spans over 13km long with 29 obstacles, participants will see the introduction of two new obstacles—Twister and Bender.
More information available here.
