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KUALA LUMPUR – Malaysia’s world-number-1 tower runner Soh Wai Ching captured another title by defending the Kolnturm Treppenlauf (Cologne Tower Run) crown with a new course record.
The 28-year-old won the overall category title in the Cologne Tower challenge – which is also known as the Germany Towerrunning Championship – by completing the 39-floors of 714 steps (132m elevation gain) in three minutes and 17 seconds yesterday.
Wai Ching, who emerged as the overall champion in the 2021 edition by clocking 3:24s, managed to improve his personal best by seven seconds and break the record by six seconds.
The previous course record of 3:23s was set by former world number one Christian Riedl of Germany in 2017.
The host country’s Gorge Heimann (3:35s) and Andreas Fruhmann (3:37s) finished second and third respectively, according to the official tournament website.
Commenting on the win, Wai Ching was grateful with his record breaking feat and hopes to achieve a double gold by winning the Zagreb Tower event on Saturday (September 3) to celebrate Malaysia’s National Day.
“Early this month I moved into a new apartment around the KLCC area. All thanks to Berjaya Corporation, Better Malaysia Foundation and Petaling Jaya City Council on becoming my sponsors, and with that I managed to rent a new place in this apartment to be my new training ground.
“Tomorrow I will be travelling to Zagreb, Croatia and start preparing for the next tower run – and my aim is to win the competition and also break the course record! It will be 25 floors, 490 steps and 83.3m elevation gain. I am super excited to achieve a double gold to celebrate Malaysia’s Independence Day,” he said when contacted in Germany. – Bernama, August 29, 2022
