AKP Phnom Penh, January 20, 2025 --

H.E. Dr. Thong Khon, Senior Minister and President of the National Olympic Committee of Cambodia (NOCC), lauded the success of this year’s Angkor Ultra Trail in the Angkor Archeological Park, hoping that more and more participants will join the annual running event in the future to participate in the development of the Siem Reap-Angkor region.

H.E. Dr. Thong Khon made the remarks while presiding over the award ceremony of the 8th Angkor Ultra Trail event on the evening of Jan. 18.

According to the NOCC, a total of 1,720 runners from 50 countries have registered to join the race, up 15 percent compared to 2024, and most of them are from France, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, and the United States.

“We hope that the 9th Angkor Ultra Trail event in 2026 will have more athletes participating with the many major development projects of the Royal Government, such as the implementation of the ‘Siem Reap Tourism Development Master Plan 2021-2035’ in order to promote the development of the Siem Reap-Angkor region and the surrounding area as a famous world heritage tourism area, with sustainability and high responsibility, in line with the motto “Conserve to develop, develop to conserve.”

At the same time, he reminded that this long-distance running event has been organised 8 times ago, since 2016 with only 232 athletes participating, under the joint collaboration between NOCC and Phoenix Voyages, which have Mr. Edouard GEORGE and Jean Claude Le Cornec as co-chairman of the organising commission, and the number of athletes participating has increased every year, except for 2021 and 2022, which were canceled due to the spread of COVID-19.

This adventure sports tourism event is organised with the aim of promoting and developing of the sports movement, urging and increasing the informal economic development, enhance the environment of heritage area, attracting tourists and supporting humanitarian projects that is a rare and wonderful event, with participants must run through the jungle, rural areas, villages and passed by many ancient temples in the Angkor National Park Area, which is the most magnificent and famous cultural heritage in the world, he added.

At the same time, H.E. Dr. Thong Khon thanked all relevant parties for continuing to collaborate with NOCC to organise this attractive tourism sports event successfully, after receiving the support and permission from the Royal Government. He also thanked all national and international athletes who continued to support and promote this sports event.

By C. Nika