Far East Ultrathon (Spring) 2017 held IAS officer T Pamei creates history
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, April 10 2017: Kwatha village, a little Shangri-La, perched on a ridge in a remote corner of the world near India Myanmar border played host to Spring 2017 edition of Far East Ultrathon (a race longer than Marathon), India's only cross border and North East India's only Ultrathon was conducted by Brave Bronco Security on April 8 in Indo � Myanmar border area.

According to a statement issued by Lt Col Naorem Kumar (retd), Race Director, the event had three categories, 65 Kms, 45 Kms and 25 Kms.

Kwatha village was the start point and participants of 65 Kms and 45 Kms had to run 4 Kms towards Kwatha Khunou and back before heading to Kwatha Lamkhai neat Khudengthabi village on National Highway.

From Kwatha Lamkhai, 25 Kms participants had to run towards Tamu to return and culminate at Forest IB in Moreh.

However, participants of 65 Kms and 45 Kms had to run towards Khongkhang village and Lokchao village respectively before heading back towards Tamu.

The Ultrathon was conducted under the supervision of Race Director, Lt Col Naorem Kumar (retd).

Far East Ultrathon (Spring) 2017 held IAS officer T Pamei creates history

Altogether, 20 runners participated in 65 Kms category race.

T Pamei, Commissioner, Govt of Manipur created history by becoming the first native of Manipur to participate and complete the race within the stipulated cut off time.

Rest of the field consisted of runners from outside the State, some of them being top ultrathoners of the country. Sagolshem Jiten Singh, a businessman living at Palace Compound, Imphal and Leonardo Pamei, a young student just coming out from school were the local representative in 25 Kms.

Category which was won by Shantanu Singh, HR Manager in Maruti Suzuki Ltd in Gurgaon, followed by Dhagesh Desai who works in Pidilite Industries Ltd, Vadodara, Gujarat in 2nd place and Yashovardhan Kanodia, a banker in ICICI Bank Ltd in Kolkata.

Winner of the category with a timing of 6 hrs 14 min was Ishan Dutta who hails from Silchar followed at 2nd place by Praveen Kumar who is from Mumbai and 3rd place went to Binay Kumar Sah from Najafgarh in NCR.

A very strong run by Divya Vasishta was also witnessed as she was the first amongst women runners and won the 4th position in the category.

She used Far East Ultrathon as practice run for her participation in the famous Comrades Marathon in South Africa in May 2017.Another runner, Lt Col Sundrasen Ren (retd) who is in the process of running 50 Marathons in 50 consecutive weeks ran the 18th one in this Ultrathon.

Bijoy Kumar of Yurembam, Manipur also created history by winning the 45 Kms category with a superlative performance.

Second place went to Pemba Lama who lives and works in IOC Ltd as manager in Guwahati and 3rd place was bagged by Shubhrajeet Konwer who is an Associate Prof in Dept of Political Science, Guwahati University. Participants and organizing team who stayed in the village for two days were overwhelmed by the welcoming nature, generosity and simplicity of the villagers, without whose support, it would not have been possible to conduct the event successfully.

Far East Ultrathon will be an annual event and will boost sports tourism by attracting runners from India as well as foreign countries, it said.