Woodcutters sharpen acts for show stint
Saws have been sharpened, axes’ edges finely honed and the chips are about to fly.
The Blenheim Axemen’s Club will stage its annual competition at the Marlborough A&P Show tomorrow with events starting at 9.30am. There will be 38 axemen and five women competing, comprising seven from Marlborough, 15 from Nelson, seven South Island, three North Island and 10 axemen plus one woman from Australia.
The Marlborough competitors are Geoffrey Hocquard (Blenheim), Robbie Brownlee and his grandsons Finn and Billy Sloan (Blenheim), Willie Abel and his son Tim (Picton), plus Ivan Smith (Seddon). Another competitor with local connections is Wera Stafford, the son of Vern Stafford, a former member of the now wound-up Wairau Axemen Club. Wera is over from Queensland to chop in Blenheim for the first time since he left town in 1972.
Events consist of two open handicapped standing chops, two open handicapped underhand chops, double sawing, single sawing, Jack and Jill sawing and ladies/boys/restricted handicapped underhand chops. The Geoff Hocquard Memorial Underhand Championship is the premier event in which the top eight axemen with the highest handicap marks will compete at 1.30pm.
Geoffrey Hocquard won his grandfather’s Memorial Standing Championship last year but will find the competition tougher this time. Blake Marsh (NSW) was second last year and won the GHM Underhand Championship in 2015. Joe Cox (Geraldine), Phil Waters (NSW), Gerald Youles (Qld) and Willie Abel have also all placed in the event in the past few years.
Seven members of the New South Wales will be in action en route to the Canterbury A & P Show where they will have races against the South Island team. In 2015, NSW team members dominated the day with 18 placings from a possible 28 over the one championship and six open handicapped events. In 2016, Blake Marsh and his father Noel (NSW) had five placings through the same events.
One-armed axeman Nick Fredriksen, from Queensland, is returning for the third time after he won his first underhand chop here in 2015.
Ashleigh Heath (currently based in Australia, formally from Westport) is a member of the New Zealand women’s team, the Axe Ferns.
She competes in the ladies underhand chop and also the open handicapped underhand events alongside the men. Last year she finished third in the large open underhand chop. Shannon Hodgetts from Canterbury also competes in both levels of the events.
Most of the axemen and women will compete in the Speights Ale House Chop in Nelson on Sunday before making their way to the Canterbury A & P Show for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.