Country comes to city’s heart
NZ Coal Shovelling Championships held
Wal Footrot and The Dog made an appearance at the 2024 New Zealand Rural Games thanks to Lachlan Fee’s left calf. The Palmerston North man won the men’s singles in the New Zealand Coal Shovelling Championships on Sunday in the city’s Te Marae o Hine / The Square.
Fee has a tattoo of Murray Ball’s beloved characters in memory of his grandfather Lloyd Billinghurst, who was a friend of the cartoonist.
Using a banjo shovel, single competitors, doubles and teams of four had to move their allocated weight of coal into the hopper as fast as possible.
As the name suggests, it’s not a glamorous sport with competitors helping put the coal back into the pile ready for the next attempt.
Dairy farmer and Farm 4 Life founder Tangaroa Walker was second in the men’s singles.
Kate Hopkins and Johanna Hopkins from Palmerston North won the women’s doubles, with Katelyn Anderson and Ffion Barr, also from Palmy, second.
Richard Banks senior (Reefton) and Curly Troon (Taihape) won the men’s doubles.
Banks has more than 50 years’ experience shovelling coal and was about 16 when he began working in coal mines.
Fee’s wife Rhianne Fee competed in the doubles and teams events.
Palmerston North’s Adam Miller won the Sir Eion Edgar Southern Hemisphere Highlander Champion. He set a new New Zealand weight for height record — 16 feet, 3 inches, superseding Pat Hellier’s 2000 record of 16 feet.
Miller comfortably cleared 16 feet and 3 inches, before hitting the bar three times at a whopping 17 feet.
He also eclipsed his own Rural Games record in the 28lb weight for distance.
Second in the Highlander Champion was Jono Macfarlane from Pohangina and third was Craig Manson from Ashburton.
Both former champions, they pushed Miller hard with Macfarlane finishing level on overall points but Miller taking the victory due to most individual event wins.
Perry Mavor and Jacob Smith of Palmerston North won the New Zealand Egg Throw and Catch Championship with Isaac Murray and Jayden Thessman, also from Palmy, third equal.
Mavor and Smith also won the New Zealand Egg Throw and Catchup Championship.
Outgoing chairwoman of the New Zealand Rural Games Trust, Margaret Kouvelis, was delighted to see young people taking part in traditional activities like tree climbing, egg throwing, and haybale racing.
The event’s mission is to get kids active, support rural sports and bring rural and urban families together.
Brendan Bourke, with more than 20 years of event management experience and now general manager of the Hawke’s Bay Community Fitness Centre Trust in Hastings, is the new trust chairman. Kouvelis remains on the board.
A new event this year was the FMG Haystack Hunt with children racing to find white ear tags in bales of hay to win prizes.
Keeping with the rural theme, food trucks included Hog Roast, The Mussel Man, and Made by Me.
Myah Wood of Palmerston North won the $5000 Winter Weekend in Queenstown shopper competition.
A highlights package will air on TV3, Saturday, March 30, at 5pm and 9.30am on Saturday, April 6.