Tower runner Soh eagerly waiting to reclaim world record

By A. Kevin Davasagayam

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 18 -- Malaysian tower runner and former Guinness World Record (GWR) holder Soh Wai Ching is eagerly waiting to reclaim his recently lost world record.

Soh, who set the world record for vertical running after clocking in 1.295 kilometres (km) in an hour at the Four Seasons Hotel here last November, told Bernama that he no longer holds the World Record.

"I was informed last month that my record is now awarded to my friend, Japanese tower runner Ryoji Watanabe who scaled the world’s tallest tower, the Tokyo Skytree in Sumida, Tokyo, in an attempt for the fastest vertical mile stair climbing (male) record also in November last year.

"Ryoji managed to scale one mile in 1 hour, 6 mins, and 58 sec, and this meant that his feat had also hit the requirements to break my record with a greater height of one mile (1.609km)," he shared.

As unfortunate as it may sound, Soh called it fair play and said that he is undeterred by this and will most definitely attempt to top both the records this year.

Soh said that as of now, he has commenced training to break the two tower running Guinness World Records, namely the fastest vertical mile stair climbing (male) and greatest vertical height stair climbing in one hour (male) at the Petronas Twin Towers.

Soh explained that in order to break both records, he has to first reach at least 1.425km in vertical height in one hour and then push on to achieve a vertical height of one mile with a faster time than 1 hour, 6 minutes, and 58 seconds.

Soh also shared that initial calculations and measurements made at the skyscraper indicate that he would need to scale the building repeatedly about five times to reach the said heights within the hour.

"KLCC Holdings in January had agreed to host my attempt (to break the two records in one go) and now we are waiting for them to give us the dates as to when we can start training as well as officially make the attempt. But I am hopeful that we would be able to make it either in May or June this year," he said.

Sharing about his training routine daily, Soh said that he scales 300 floors twice a day, seven days a week.

"I have doubled down on my training volume as this is not an easy record to beat...I would have to work hard to compensate for the times that would be consumed as I take the lift to descend to the ground floor of the building during my record attempt," he said.

Soh further shared that the greater picture of him attempting to break the record is to promote tower running among Malaysians as well as instill the need for Malaysians to leave their marks internationally.

"I really hope that my attempt will be an example for Malaysians to always strive to be World champions," he said.

For the record, Soh Wai Ching is currently the world number two ranked tower runner as well as Asia's number one.

-- BERNAMA