The competitive trail ultramarathon racing season kicked off at the 2026 Hong Kong 100k on Saturday, January 24. While the weather was relatively cool, competition was hot, featuring many of the top runners from the global East. In the women’s race, Vietnam’s Hậu Hà and Veronika Leng, who is from Slovakia but lives in Hong Kong, finished in a tie, while China’s Gui-Du Qin dominated the men’s race in an emotional win.
Hậu Hà (left) and Veronika Leng (right) tie for the win at the 2026 Hong Kong 100k. Photo: Hong Kong 100k
The Hong Kong 100k is the final event after three days of racing, including highly competitive 30k and 50k events. The weekend also hosts a Grand Sam race where competitors can race all three events, a play on the Grand Slam concept but named after local runner Sam Tam, the first person to complete the triplet challenge.
The 100k event is the season opener for the World Trail Majors series, and this year’s course covered 93 kilometers (58 miles) with 5,073 meters (16,644 feet) of elevation gain. Changes to this year’s course made the race shorter and therefore faster than usual. The course uses many sections of Hong Kong’s iconic Maclehose Trail and finishes with a celebratory 4-kilometer descent from Hong Kong’s highest peak, Tai Mo Shan. Most of the climbing is in the latter half of the race, but the first half still consists of steady climbs up steps between the beaches and nature trails.
The line-up featured some familiar faces from last year, as well as some race rookies with strong international results to their names. In the women’s race, local hero Leng was back after placing second in the race last year. Hà was coming off a win at the December 2025 Chiang Mai Thailand 100k, and had placed second at the 2025 Ultra-Trail Ninghai 60k after taking sixth at the 2025 Western States 100.
In the men’s race, two-time winner and course-record holder Guang-Fu Meng (China) was back to try to make it three in a row. He was facing Qin, who was second in 2025 and looking to improve his placing, and they were joined by last year’s third-place finisher, Guo-Min Deng (China).
Read on for a full breakdown of the races.
2026 Hong Kong 100k Women’s Race
It didn’t take long for the women’s field to spread out in the early morning hours, with Vietnam’s Hậu Hà taking the early lead, in her typical aggressive racing strategy. By the second checkpoint, with 19k covered and 1:40 elapsed on the clock, Hà, who was third at the event last year and sixth at the 2025 Western States 100, had already opened a 3-minute gap on Wen-Li Jiang (China) and the rest of the field. Chinese countrymates, Ying Li, who was second at the event in 2024, ran in third a further minute back, and Chun-Yue Ma was just behind.
Over the relatively flatter first part of the course, Hà’s aggressive pacing put her even further in front of the women’s field. Having covered 32k in three hours, she now held more than a 10-minute gap on second-place Li and third-place Jiang, who were running within 10 seconds of each other. Ling-Jie Chi (China) and Veronika Leng (Slovakia), the latter of whom finished second at the event last year and was fifth at the 2025 CCC, made up the rest of the top five, with second through fifth running just over a minute apart but with a growing gap on the rest of the field.
Hậu Hà leading the 2026 Hong Kong 100k before tying for the win with Veronika Leng. Photo: Hong Kong 100k
Still with the majority of the climbing ahead of them, Hà continued to lead with 41k covered in 3:52 elapsed. Her gap to her chasers seemed to have stabilized, and now it was Chi and Leng in pursuit just over 11 minutes back, with Li and Jiang holding on to top-five positions.
It was after the 40k mark that the climbing really started, though. For the first couple of significant climbs, each ranging between 200 and 400 meters in elevation gain, Hà continued to extend her lead slightly over the chasing Leng and Chi, who were pulling away from the rest of the field. By 62k in, Leng had dropped her running companion and was pursuing leader Hà alone. Over the course of a series of smaller climbs and descents, Leng started to pull the gap to the leader down from 13:57 at 49k to 11:34 at 62k to 9:54 at 70k.
Still, with only 23k of racing left, it seemed that Leng might run out of real estate to close the gap completely. Before the final major climb, 80k into the race and 8:27 on the clock, Hà’s lead over Leng was now down to 6:51, and Leng was reportedly closing with increasing speed. Chi was still in third, 13:19 off the lead, with the gaps to the rest of the field continuing to grow.
Ling-Jie Chi climbs during the 2026 Hong Kong 100k on her way to finishing in third place. Photo: Hong Kong 100k
Midway up the final climb, with only 9k to race, the gap between Hà and Leng was down to 3:48, and Chi had closed to 10:47 from the leader. In the final 600 meters of climbing and subsequent descending, and the final hour of racing, Leng was able to reel in the race-long leader Hà.
In the end, Veronika Leng and Hậu Hà tied for first place in 10:43:35. This was Hà’s second major tie in recent history; last year she did the same at the Malaysia Ultra-Trail 100k. Ling-Jie Chi continued to close the gap on the lead and finished less than 10 minutes back in third place with a time of 10:52. The top five remained the same as it was just 30k into the race, with Ying Li finishing fourth in 11:28:04 and Wen-Li Jian finishing fifth in 11:29:46.
2026 Hong Kong 100k Women’s Results
- 1. Veronika Leng (Slovakia) – 10:43:35
- 1. Hậu Hà (Vietnam) – 10:43:35
- 3. Ling-Jie Chi (China) – 10:52:22
- 4. Ying Li (China) – 11:28:04
- 5. Wen-Li Jiang (China) – 11:29:46
- 6. Katrina Hamlin (U.K.) – 11:51:50
- 7. Li-Ping Wang (China) – 12:00:31
- 8. Elizabeth Dangadang (Philippines) – 12:05:12
- 9. Man Yee Cheung (Hong Kong) – 12:06:05
- 10. Chun-Yue Ma (China) – 12:34:04
2026 Hong Kong 100k Men’s Race
Unlike the women’s race, which had an early and decisive leader, the men strung themselves out in the early kilometers, close to each other, but not necessarily running together. Milan Kulung Rai (Nepal) led the charge at 19k with 1:25 elapsed. He was followed closely by the U.S.’s Dakota Jones, who was just 10 seconds behind, and Chinese countrymates Guo-Min Deng, Guang-Fu Meng, and Gui-Du Qin, who were all within a minute of the leader. Meng, the defending champion from 2024 and 2025, was the odds-on favorite this year. Qin was last year’s second-place finisher and fourth in 2024, while Deng finished third at the event last year. The rest of the front end of the field ran with small gaps between them.
Gui-Du Qin wins the 2026 Hong Kong 100k. Photo: Hong Kong 100k
Over the second climb of note and into the third checkpoint at 32k, Kulung Rai fell back to seventh place, and Deng and Qin ran together at the front of the field, with Jones and Meng trailing less than 30 seconds behind. Kulung Rai would continue to drop back and ultimately finish in 29th place.
Over the next relatively flat 9k, Qin opened up a small 36-second gap on chaser Deng and extended his lead just a bit on Meng, who was now over a minute back. Jones had moved back a bit more, too, now sitting more than two minutes behind the leader. The 2015 champ Long-Fei Yan (China) and many-time participant John Ray Onifa (Philippines) chased together more than six minutes off the lead in fifth and sixth.
Guang-Fu Meng finishes second at the 2026 Hong Kong 100k. Photo: Hong Kong 100k
Nothing changed in the standings over the middle section of the course. At the seventh checkpoint, 70k into the race, Qin continued to dominate with 6:28 elapsed on the clock, with a 5-minute lead on Meng and 8:45 on Deng. Jones maintained his fourth-place position, now 11 minutes back.
In the final third of the race and on the slopes of the last and biggest climb up and over Tai Mo Shan, Hong Kong’s highest peak, Meng made a huge push to try to close the gap to Qin. Partway up the slopes, at 84k, he’d closed the gap to a mere 3.5 minutes. Deng was now nearly 12 minutes behind the leader in the closing 9k.
Unlike in the women’s race, the gap between the top two never lessened. At long last, after three prior finishes inside the top five, Gui-Du Qin got the win of the 2026 Hong Kong 100k in 8:52:36. The two-time defending champ Guang-Fu Meng finished in second in 8:58:50. Guo-Min Deng was third in 9:09:48, following up on at least two prior third-place finishes. In his debut at this race, Dakota Jones finished in fourth in 9:15:49. John Ray Onifa was able to hold on to fifth in 9:50:52, his highest ranking finish over several appearances at this race.
Guo-Min Deng descending during the 2026 Hong Kong 100k on his way to a third-place finish. Photo: Hong Kong 100k
2026 Hong Kong 100k Men’s Results
- Gui-Du Qin (China) – 8:52:36
- Guang-Fu Meng (China) – 8:58:50
- Guo-Min Deng (China) – 9:09:48
- Dakota Jones (U.S.) – 9:15:49
- John Ray Onifa (Philippines) – 9:50:52
- Long-Fei Yan (China) – 9:59:08
- Alexandre Neyrinck (U.K.) – 10:01:31
- Ferdinand Airault (France) – 10:06:53
- Hui Bai (China) – 10:11:15
- Fu-Jun He (China) – 10:11:41
