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The 2004 JPMorgan Chase Corporate Challenge Championship will be the most global and competitive in history. The best corporate runners from six countries on five continents will compete on Saturday, October 2 on New York's famous Park Avenue. This is one of a series of features about teams training for the Championship. You'll want to visit all the stops on the Road to the Championship to read about the participants who have found the perfect blend of workplace productivity and race course swiftness. |
2nd STOP: SINGAPORE
The Gurkha Contingent of the Singapore Police Force displays its dominance early in April's Singapore race (top). In hot, humid conditions, Rem Bahadur Magur (4820 above) won in 19:05, with his mates on the winning Male team all finishing within seven seconds.
From the Himalayas to Park Avenue,
Gurkhas' trek is remarkable journey
Male champion Rem Bahadur Magur receives Tiffany trophy from Ralph Parks, Chairman, JPMorgan Asia Pacific. |
Singapore, August 26, 2004 - For the first time, the road to the JPMorgan Chase Corporate Challenge Championship goes through the towering downtown of Singapore. In reality, however, the first steps on the trip to New York this fall for members of Singapore 's winning Male and Mixed teams took place a world away – in the small mountain villages that cling to the steep hillsides of Nepal.
In a dominating performance made even more impressive by the hot, humid conditions in which it was run, members of the elite Gurkha Contingent of the Singapore Police Force crushed the competition in Singapore 's first JPMorgan Chase Corporate Challenge. The Gurkhas:
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Had the first eight finishers, all under 20 minutes;
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Had a Male team that finished almost 10 minutes ahead of the first non-Gurkha team with a winning time of 1:16:36;
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Had its first four runners finish within seven seconds of each other – from a race-winning 19:05 to 19:12;
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Had the first two Male teams;
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Had a Mixed team that won by almost six minutes.
The only team title not won by the Gurkhas went to the HSBC Female squad of Yuet Lin Angela Leong, Ai Ping Yeo, Janet Young, and Sara Duckworth, who combined their efforts to win by almost seven minutes.
And, because comparing times across the widely varying conditions of the 15-city, five-continent JPMorgan Chase Corporate Challenge is tricky, it will be very interesting to see how the Gurkhas perform when they come to New York for the most international of any of the 22 Championship events in the Series history.
“We are very competitive and will strive to do well despite being in a strange country and on unfamiliar ground, and running under perhaps cooler and less humid conditions,” said the Gurkha team captain, Sergeant Ganesh Bahadur Thapa.
Gurkha trace heritage to historic traditiions
Of course, saying the Gurkhas are competitive is like saying the Yankees enjoy winning.
The Gurkha heritage is the stuff of legend. Fierce warriors descended from the Rajput tribes of North India, the Gurkhas conquered the small Nepali region of Gorkha after being forced from India in the early 16th century. According to legend, once a Gurkha draws out his “Khukri” (fighting knife) in battle, it must “taste blood.” If it has not, its owner has to cut himself before returning it to its sheath.
In the era of the British Empire, it was the Gurkhas who made up the elite forces in many parts of Asia, particularly Hong Kong and Singapore. In 1949, the Gurkha Contingent was officially created in Singapore from ex-British Army Gurkhas.
“Our fathers and their fathers who went to war before them made us famous due to their bravery and fortitude,” said Thapa. “Being able to run swiftly is not something our forefathers were famous for, but rather, carrying very heavy loads – often more than their own body weight – over mountainous terrain without respite is what the Gurkha is famous for. And, of course, our whole being is to emulate our ancestors and not to sully their name and the one they gave us.”
Yet, even from the Gurkha Contingent in Singapore, it is still another world to where the roots of the city-state's winning teams were formed. In the rice and wheat growing villages on the foothills of the Himalayas, young Gurkhas, aged 22 to 29, are recruited for positions in this special unit of the Singapore Police Force. In the past, the Gurkhas have helped quell race riots, strikes and union disputes. Impartial, calm and deadly efficient, the Gurkhas today help protect some of Singapore's most sensitive buildings in the war on terrorism.
“Our Gurkha population from which we are selected and recruited forms only about 6 percent of the total population of Nepal, which is many millions,” said Thapa. “And, for every vacancy on offer for selection, many, many hundreds of applicants come forward seeking to join our Unit.”
The winning Gurkha teams didn't do any special training in preparation for April's race in Singapore. Didn't need to, really.
Gurkhas led from start in first-year record race in Singapore
“We maintained our normal tempo of training and just made sure we had seen the route we were to compete over,” said Thapa.
Indeed, given the Gurkha's heritage and their rigorous selection and training process, it was no surprise that on race day the Gurkhas were viewed with pride leading a first-year record field of 6,766 participants through Singapore's glittering downtown race route.
“We do, as a way of life, a lot of hard physical training and do a lot of contact sports in order to keep in shape as operational policeman,” said Thapa
“Altitude also may come into it a bit,” he allowed. “Our mountain villages lie at some 1,000 to 4,000 meters and from our earliest days, we do hard physical work helping our parents on our mountain farms. The hillsides are steep and we carry heavy loads of salt, grain and fodder over long distances. We also cover long distances on foot to meet relatives and to trade. Even to go to school can mean an uphill walk for us of two hours.”
First visit to a different world in New York for Gurkhas
Such are the first steps of a journey that will now take the victorious Gurkhas to a run on one of the most famous streets in the world, Park Avenue.
“The team has never been to New York, all we know about New York is what we see on television shows,” said Rem Bahadur Magur, the male champion at Singapore in 19 minutes, 5 seconds. “We are all good runners, and we train together, but we've never had a corporate race like this where we could train as a team for a big prize. We are all very excited.”
In fact, none of the runners have been to New York, or even outside of Asia, said Sergeant Thapa
“All of us love to travel and see new places,” he added, “and we look forward with expectation to seeing the shape, the size, and the skyline of famous New York City. Our stay will be short, but it would be nice to perhaps see something of the New York Police Force or the famous West Point Military Academy.”
The worlds of a mountain in Nepal and the bustling streets of Manhattan may be far different, but they clearly have some common bonds.
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