TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taipei 101 Run Up on Saturday (May 4) attracted nearly 5,000 runners from 34 countries.
An elite group of 50 athletes was the first to begin the race, which ended on the 91st floor of the skyscraper and covered an estimated 2,046 steps. Certified by Towerrunning World Association, the Taipei race is one of the most difficult in the world because of the steepness of the stairs.
Taipei 101 Run Up also served as the Towerrunning World Championship this year. For this reason, race organizers decided to increase the difficulty by requiring elite competitors to compete in two heats with rankings based on cumulative time.
The first heat for elite runners began at 8 a.m. and covered the entire race course, floors 1–91. The second heat began at 9:10 a.m. and covered floors 1–59.
Malaysian Soh Wai Ching, age 30, won the men’s title with an overall time of 18:36. Second place went to Japan’s Ryoji Watanabe at 18:40 and third place to Australian Mark Bourne at 19:33.
After the race, Soh said, "I thought I was well prepared, but as soon as I began, I started to feel a little scared. The steps are really quite high, and about two-thirds of the way through the race, I began to feel it was quite difficult,” per SETN.
In the women’s category, Italian Valentina Belotti prevailed with a time of 22:29, followed by Japan’s Yuko Tateishi at 24:51 and Estonia’s Kaisa Kukk at 25:24.
The top prize was NT$109,000 (US$3,300) for male and female categories. The top six finishers in each category earned a cash award.
A special bonus of NT$200,000 was set aside for anyone able to break the Taipei 101 Run Up world record. The current record still belongs to Australia’s Paul Crake, who finished at 10:29 in 2005 for men, and Austria’s Andrea Mayr at 12:38 in 2005 for women.
