A New Venture into Adventure Running Organisation

An e-interview with Ivan Wong.

Malaysia’s running industry is not currently in the best place following the spate of cancelled and postponed events due to poor participation numbers, accidents at unauthorised events and the long running scandal over the yet to be run, or otherwise dealt with, Twin City Marathon.

The Minister of Sport himself has stated that he and his department are determined to ensure that participants in Malaysian sporting events are safe and not duped by rogues posing as event organisers.

Given the current turmoil why would anyone feel that now is the time to launch a new event organising company and a new adventure running event?

Over to Mr. Ivan Wong.

Q. Can you tell us a little about Kow Kow Sport and its make-up?

First let me explain why KOW KOW Sport.

The organisation is made up of three people, each very heavily involved in Malaysian ultra-running and multi-sports scenes. Mr. Kan Kok Wah, Mr. Toto Ong and myself Ivan Wong.

Mr. Kan will be very well known to the running community through his fifteen years of supplying Brooks shoes through his roadshows and at just about every sporting event around the country.

Back in 2007 he started Hash House running and latterly he and I have organised the three editions of the very successful 33km Ball Breaker Hash for the Mantin Hash House. This event is an open event that brings Hash runners together from many Hash Houses around the country.

As time passed we were unable to obtain sponsorship for such a specialised event, but we moved on and gained further knowledge and experience within different sporting avenues.

Mr. Ong is a fulltime athlete and brand ambassador for Brooks Running Malaysia, Nutrilite and Sony Asia.

He is an avid ultra-marathon runner, 100 kms and 100 miles both road and trail. He has also competed in six full distance Ironman events, both here and abroad.

As an active Malaysian Ultra Running Association (MURA) member he can often be found in the company of some very experienced Race Directors such as Ng Seow Kong (Endurance Nature), Jeff Ooi (Ultra Running) and Arman Arshad (Team Pacat).

And myself, I started trail running in 2007 and I am still to this day running events and Hash Runs two or three times a week. I also compete in multi-sports events such as the Rembau Challenge and since 2013 I have been competing in Olympic Distance Triathlons.

It was last year, during the launch of the Malaysia Ultra League Championship (MULC), in conversation with many other race directors who were coming together to make up the league structure that the three of us first muted the idea of our company and event.

From that point we set about putting forward a proposal to Brooks Running Malaysia for funding to launch our first event.

Q. As one of the newest running event, especially ultra-trail running, organisers. What made you feel that you could successfully move into this difficult sphere of work?

I believe in the Malaysian running industry. There are more and more people who want to reap the benefits of the fitness that our sport has to offer, as well as the increasing number of people who just love to run.

We feel that the maturing Malaysian running scene will want the different exhilaration that high mountain terrain ultra-running has to offer.

We have many years of accumulated experience between us and we know what runners require and feel that if we give what is wanted then we will be supported. Supported by both our sponsors and our target audience, the avid trail runner.

Q. Why do you feel the industry, especially your sponsors, have put their faith in you as a first-time organiser?

Mr. Kan, having been selling Brooks trail shoes for the past 15 years, has the advantage of a long-term relationship with our main sponsor. Obtaining prizes and further sponsorship from different brand bases has come from his connections and good reputation within the trail running industry here in Malaysia.

Q. In the wake of the clamp down by the authorities how did you find the license application process?

We believe that the majority of running events in the past were not approved by the Ministry of Youth & Sports, but due to recent cases, especially the accident last November in the unlicensed Klang City Marathon, things will have to change. We have submitted our application to Kementerian Belia Dan Sukan, supported by Jabatan Perhutanan Eko Rimba Raub & PAHANG Tourism. We believe we will get our approval letter very soon.

Obtaining the permit to use the trails in Fraser’s Hill was far from easy. We have spent a lot of time discussing and negotiating regarding the extent of disturbance to the Fraser’s Hill trail system, a full clean-up plan has been a major factor in us being permitted to utilise the extensive trail system. We, as nature and forest lovers have promised the forestry department that we and our participants will take care of their environment.

Safety was the other main concern that we had to address before permission was granted. We assured the forestry department that we had undertaken full risk management planning, with route planning having been determined and recced by some very experienced trail runners, we have contracted medical staff, the hiking team from Hospital Sungai Buloh, who will be in posted at each water station and in addition members of the Mountain Search and Rescue Society (MoSaRS) will be in attendance.

RonOL Opinion: How can the authorities claim to be serious about regulating our events when they put in place a license system that issues or denies a license just weeks, sometimes days, prior to the event taking place. Events, such as this one, take many months of planning and preparation. Many contracts will have been signed and payments will have been made by the organisers. Participants will have made their payments. This all before a license has been granted. This needs to be completely overhauled.

Q. Regarding your actual event, for your first event what made you go for three separate distances rather than cutting your teeth on just one distance?

Our main objective is to organise a top class ultra-distance event.

But we also felt that we would like to encourage others to join and experience the magnificent trails of Fraser’s Hill and the sheer joy of trail-running.

The shorter distances, for friends or supporter of the ultra-runners, give the option to experience a medium and short distance introduction to trail running.

We believe this is the way to encourage beginners into trail running and a way to improve their race experience as they build towards entering ultra-trail running events.

Q. Given that ours is an amateur sport, what made you feel that you needed to offer such a large prize fund?

Based on the generosity of our sponsors, we decided that we wanted to be different to other events and return the RM21,000 cash, and product, donated directly back to the runners by the way of prizes.

We have as large a spread of prizes as we feel our event deserves. Each distance has male and female, open and veteran categories. Presentation of cash, prizes and trophy will be made to the first five finishers in all categories with further trophies for those finishing from sixth to tenth and of coarse ever finisher will receive their event medal, designed as the iconic Fraser’s Hill Clock Tower.

RonOL Opinion: Beware the slippery slope of bringing cash into our sport, do we want to see the same money chasing that we have in road-running along with the accompanying race segregation that has befallen road races here in Malaysia?

My view is that that the money would have really benefited the running community if it had been put towards reducing the registration costs.

Q. You have stated your intention to attract a wide international participation, are you actively pursuing entrants abroad or are you looking more to the Malaysian ExPat community?

We have opened our race registration internationally because we would like to help to build the Malaysian trail-running community to a higher standard within South East Asia. We strongly feel that by competing against the best of the area, and further afield, our national standard will inevitably improve.

Our event is working closely with Asia Trail Masters, although without full ATM accreditation due to a date clash with another of their events, and we have secured our full distance as a contributing event in the MUL Championship thus we believe many international runners will consider our event as part of their 2018 running commitment.

The strategic and iconic run location will also be a good reason for runners to enter.

Q. Have the actual routes been finalised and approved?

The routes have been recced for all the distances, the management of Fraser’s Hill are aware of our event and have agreed to work closely together with us. The exact approved routes will soon updated on our Facebook page and website.

Q. Knowing many of the trails in Fraser’s Hill are very narrow and some could be quite hazardous, will the event be run on closed trails and roads?

Yes, our trail runs for 50km & 25km will involve running on some narrow and technical trail, we highly encourage those runners who are to participate in these runs to train hard to enjoy and complete the race.

Our trail run are mostly trails, there is not much road running.

We have engaged the local authorities to control traffic during the race.

In addition, to make sure that our runners are safe in our race, we plan to organise two clinics on the same race route before race day, look out for details on Facebook and on our website, so the runners will have realistic expectations of what to expect on the race day itself.

Q. Have you contracted an outside events company and timing company or will this be undertaken entirely by Kow Kow Sport?

Kow Kow Sport will be organising all aspects of the event, the courses, logistics and administration.

However, we have contracted the race timing to Runners Unite and the registration portal to Howei.

Q. Your race Kit collection policy precludes anyone wishing to enter and turn up on the day. Why did you not consider a postal option?

Race Kit Collection has been arranged for the 14th. July 2018 at our official hotel partners, Puncak Inn Resort as we will also have an expo put on by some of our sponsors.

Anyone who is unable to make the RKC on that date can e-mail us and we will arrange for them to collect their kit one hour before the compulsory race briefing.

Q. Is there anything further you would like to share.

“We would like to thank you for giving us this opportunity to share our thoughts, we as eco-friendly race directors will be doing more future upcoming events . We will need the support of local and international participants. We are not affiliated with any other race directors but working with MULC to benefit runners accumulating their race points in order for their year end MULC 2018 achievement.

We have submitted our proposal to ATM, unfortunately they could not allocate our event with this JULY because there is another ATM event which is happening on the same date as our event in Indonesia .

In the near future, we as event organizers would like to grow the sport and trail running industry by getting more new trail runners to take part in our event as well as we will also be grooming the sports athlete by giving free workshop trail running clinic/ workshop in Fraser Hill somewhere on March and May. The date will be finalized soon. as well as nutrition planning. We strongly believe the runners community will give us an opportunity to grow as an organizer in the ultra-running community”

Ivan Wong for KOW KOW Sport.

Team KOW KOW (Top to Bottom) Toto Ong, Ivan Wong and Kan Kok Wah.

I can’t wait to experience this new event, partly because I want to see first hand how these experienced trail-runners translate their trail-running experience into event organisation.

But, knowing Fraser’s Hill’s trails as well as I do I just can’t wait to put my running boots onto Hemmant, Bishop, Mager, Abu Suradi, Maxwell and the Pine Tree Trails plus the challenge of Gunung Semangkok where my hiking boots usually tred.

See you at the clock tower.