There’s no stopping Sandi Menchi Abahan as she raised the country’s flag once more by ruling the 2022 World’s Highest Marathon held this month.
Abahan swept the three categories in the female side in the vertical kilometer, standard marathon, and ultramarathon of the event held at Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.
The Cordilleran ultrarunner clocked in two hours, three minutes, and 12 seconds in the vertical kilometer followed by another homegrown running coach Cristabel Martes who clocked 2:18:20 and Kam Kaur of India with a time of 3:01:03.
The vertical kilometer featured continuous 7.5 kilometers of ascending and descending trails.
In the 43K standard marathon category, Abahan had a time of 9:00:50 followed this time by Kaur at 13:49:14 while Martes failed to finish the event.
The 53K ultramarathon category also saw Abahan finishing at 11:03:22 while Martes did not finish the race. Kaur, on the other hand, was disqualified.
In all of the categories, Abahan went head-to-head with her male counterparts, as she placed fifth overall based on her strong performances.
This is the first Mt. Kilimanjaro experience of playing coach Martes, who accompanied another Filipino athlete Elias Tabac and Abahan in the World’s Highest Marathon.
Despite losing numerous times during the event, Martes proved her mettle during the grueling international race.
Tabac, meanwhile, placed second in the marathon with a time of 7:59:17 tailing Roberto Delorenzi of Switzerland in first place with a time of 7:35:46.
He also placed second in the ultramarathon next to Delorenzi and placed third in the vertical kilometer with Delorenzi in first place and Tanzania’s Mussa Mwakyusa in second place. – Ofelia C. Empian
