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Sports correspondent & historian with |
A sport that predates the arrival of rugby to New Zealand’s arrival in our country stopped off visited the Mount Maunganui RSA last Saturday.
Today, wood-chopping sits under the umbrella of timber sports and started in New Zealand in the 1870s.
New Zealand forests were the breeding ground for some of New Zealand’s most rugged axemen and sawyers.
Those pioneering athletes held contests to see who was the best at felling trees and processing logs.
Those contests formed a new sport in the young nation.
A century ago, every decent-sized country town had an A&P (Agricultural & Pastoral) Show, with wood-chopping attracting big crowds.
The Christchurch A&P Show and the Auckland Easter Show brought the country’s axemen to the big smoke to battle out the nation’s best of the best.in New Zealand.
Saturday’s chopping and sawing event at the Mount RSA brought the country to town in an indoor competition with spectators extremely close to the unfolding action.
The official wood-chopping season starts in October, and organiser Neville Bowen said the Mount RSA event was an opportunity to bring the clubs together in the first event.
The competition was six-person teams, including a mixed teams event known as the Jack and Jill competition.
Wood-chopping has an official handicapping system similar to golf. Each axeman’s official handicap is recorded in performance books based on event starts and wins.
Most competitions are handicap events, where the air is loudly broken as the starter kicks off the handicaps in seconds.
Individual events include the original standing block and underhand chop, where competitors stand on top of the log.
The most spectacular competition is the tree-felling, where the axeman cuts two standing pockets for his board and then proceeds to fall the block on top of the pole.
In single and double saw races, competitors wield razor-sharp saws in all-action competitions. More recently, chainsaw events have been completed in the blink of an eye.
Over the past 50 fifty years, the Bolstad, Wynyard, and, more recently, the Jordan family names have symbolised excellence in timber sports competitions.
The Bolstad name is synonymous with woodchopping, as shown by grandfather Sonny Bolstad and his son David, both giants of the national and international axemen competitions.
Today, the third generation of Bolstad axemen in Morgan Bolstad endeavours to make a mark on the sport.
Jason Wynyard was another well-known axeman who captured a wheelbarrowload of world titles before his death last year. He passed away at a relatively early age last year.
Jack Jordan, who took part in the Mount Maunganui RSA event, is a current world champion and, with their brother Cameron, will be the target of other timber sports competitors this season.
I find it difficult to accept the inclusion of breakdancing and skateboarding in Olympic competitions. At the same time, wood chopping sits outside the Olympic competition circle.