Sasuke Malaysia - Day 1

Overview (seems from the end of the first stage) of Sasuke Malaysia Stage 1 at the end of Day One ©sadiq_zulkifli

As I mentioned before.. Sasuke Malaysia happened TODAY! This trials for Malaysia for a spot in Sasuke 27 in Japan started very rainy. Seems torrential downpours in the morning delayed the beginning of the event. Nevertheless they managed to get a break in the weather and they got it started! I spent a good portion of the time checking twitter for any updates I could find. Luckily there was plenty of information to be found so I can post it here quicker than I thought I would.

Historic Competitor #1 of Sasuke Malaysia ©Naz Grazz

Originally they were supposed to run all 100 Sasuke Malaysia competitors in Stage 1 today. The weather delayed the start by quite a bit so they were going to try to run the first 85 today. By the time they got to about competitor 54 they only had ONE person actually complete Stage 1!!

All-Star Makoto Nagano 長野誠 overseeing production of Sasuke Malaysia ©Naz Grazz

The course itself reflected heavily what Sasuke looks like. THIS is how you do a stage 1.. (sorry.. I hate how G4 does American Ninja Warrior as a whole with that stupid Survivor "Boot Camp.". and an un-timed course you run twice) it was 100 people, all of them with their own Saddlecloths (a wonderful memento for any fan) and the course was TIMED. It was a 120 second (or 2 minute) course run. G4 take note.. you got showed up by a first-time event...

Sasuke Malaysia Stage 2 (Final tower) ©sadiq_zulkifli

Tomorrow the completion of Stage 1 is expected followed by Stage 2. Stage 2 (the last of the stages since Sasuke Malaysia is a 2 stage trials) is a Final Tower. It is rumored to be a 10m spider climb into a 10m rope climb. The tower right now (most likely not completely set up) seems to only be 14 meter rope. We'll have to see if tomorrow changes what it looks like.

#59 Johany Usof and All-Star Makoto Nagano 長野誠 ©Johan Yusof

Thanks to the kind souls who spoke with this crazy Rican over twitter today providing wonderful analysis of what was going on over 6 thousand miles from me. Glad they were able to get most of the runs in today. Hope the weather clears up for tomorrow!

All-Star Makoto Nagano 長野誠 looking fab... ©Armin Baniaz

Meanwhile Datuk Armin Baniaz Pahamin (profile in wiki) has been kind enough to keep us ridiculously updated! He did a HUGE blog (over 200+ pics) of the first 1/3 runs of Sasuke Malaysia. Check out his blog entry for part 1 of day 1.

End of the First Stage in Sasuke Malaysia ©Armin Baniaz