M’sian Tower Runner Conquers Taipei 101 in Just a Little More Than 18 Minutes & 30 Seconds

In a sea of skyscrapers, one man has emerged to conquer them all, and it’s none other than our very Soh Wai Ching.

Throughout the last few years, he has been consistently going to tower-running competitions and winning them.

Just recently, the 2024 Towerrunning World Championships was held on 4 May at the iconic Taipei 101 in Taiwan. And guess what? Soh Wai Ching managed to get first place while competing against 6,000 participants, taking the title of the 2024 World Champion.

A video uploaded on the athlete’s page has since gone viral as tugged at the heartstrings of many Malaysians.

In that clip, Wai Ching is seen crying while holding on to the Malaysian flag, and the emcee is in the background shouting that Malaysia truly Asia did it.

This is a biennial event, and it was finally resumed after the last event in 2018, prior to the pandemic. At that time, Soh Wai Ching only managed to get third place.

According to BERNAMA, the 30-year-old conquered Taipei 101 in 18 minutes and 36.62 seconds, beating 6,000 international participants.

Wai Ching completed the first round of 91 floors (390m elevation gain) in 11:35.61s, while he took 7:1.01s to climb 59 floors (256m elevation gain) in the second round.

Coming up behind him are Japan’s Ryoji Watanabe (18:40.04s) and Australian Mark Bourne (19:33.12), who finished second and third, respectively.

Malaysia Towerrunning Association (MTA) President Ravinder Singh said that this results from Wai Ching’s dedication.

“Journey to the top has been a testament to his dedication and consistency, having been at the peak of his game since 2020. After four years of maintaining his high performance, he has earned the ultimate towerrunning accolade.”

We would like to congratulate Soh Wai Ching for his win and thank him for making the nation proud. We look forward to more wonderful things you will do in the future.

Also read: Team Malaysia Wins GOLD at International Cheerleading Championships in the US!