Marathoner Tommy Chen (陳彥博) won his first ultramarathon in six years when he captured this year’s Inca Run in Bolivia on Saturday.
Chen completed the grueling 170km plateau race, which was divided into six stages, in a combined time of 18 hours, 25 minutes and 3 seconds, about 50 minutes ahead of his closest pursuer, Italian Katia Figini.
“I can’t believe I earned the championship,” Chen said after finishing the final stage of the competition on a day that began with the mercury at minus-18oC.
Photo courtesy of Tommy Chen
Chen said his drinking water and food were frozen and he could not light a fire to cook, so he scrambled to get some nutrients to gain some energy.
In the early stages of Saturday’s run, he fell 30 minutes behind the leaders, but he was determined not to see his efforts in the first five days of the race go down the drain and did his best to catch up, he said.
Warming temperatures helped him regain his speed in the final 10km, and he finished second on the day, good enough to preserve the lead he had built up over the past five days and clinch the title.
Some of the other 17 racers from nine countries, including South Korea, Denmark and Canada, were surprised that a runner from sub-tropical Taiwan could beat them in the high-altitude, low-temperature race.
“Tommy was a shy boy, but he has become a young man who loves to dash to the finish line,” his parents told Chinese-language media recently.
The 28-year-old Chen completed races in eight major ultramarathons across seven continents before participating in the Bolivian race.
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