Off for the big chop
Michelle Mitchell is heading to Tulsa, Oklahoma, for the World Axe and Knife Throwing Championships next month in a national team that boasts mainly female throwing power.
Eketāhuna born Mitchell will be competing in the duals category with her axe-throwing partner Sarah Hilyard and will face off against 137 other teams from around the world from April 18-21.
Mitchell and Hilyard will have to successfully throw their axes at the same time, at the same target and aim to hit the bullseye.
“You’re effectively going for half a bullseye,” Mitchell said.
The competition was run on a double elimination basis – two losses would mean elimination.
Mitchell said like many other sports there were good days and bad days. She was hopeful that when the duo competed in Oklahoma it would be a good day.
The senior finance administrator currently works for Ventia in Petone and started axe throwing while in the Gold Coast in an effort to make friends but ended up finding a sport that she loved.
“I feel like if people are throwing axes, it’s going to be quite a cool group of people. So I went along … Straightaway I was like, oh yeah, this is my crowd.”
When Mitchell returned to New Zealand, she joined a Wellington axe throwing joint called Sweet Axe, which holds league nights all year round on Monday and Wednesday.
Throwing for four-and-a-half years now, Mitchell said it took her a long time to decide she wanted to try her hand at the competitive side.
Her first year back in New Zealand she was “casually” doing the sport. It wasn’t until recently that she saw the opportunity to go to the world championships as something achievable.
“For me personally, I’m not superfit and so I was like, actually, I could do this sport and be good at it without having to go through some super fitness regime … As I am, [I] can still compete at a world level, which I think is cool.”
Mitchell said the key to getting good, if you don’t naturally have a knack for it, was to keep trying.
The longer you do it, the easier it gets, she said.
Axe throwing was for everyone, she said. It didn’t matter whether you were in a wheelchair, throwing with two hands or just one hand, the diversity of those that competed was what made it “amazing”.
“Going to worlds is a team of six and there’s four women and two men, and that’s not picked by the club, it's just by who qualified.”
Mitchell said New Zealand leads the sport in having the most women competing. Of her goals while she’s over in the US, Mitchell said she’d like to get a new axe and to hopefully inspire women over there to start axe throwing.
The championship will be streamed on ESPN on April 21 (April 22 NZ time).
With sponsorship secured from her workplace, Mitchell was also running a Give A Little page to raise funds for the trip.
Mitchell was set to showcase her skills at the Rural Games in Palmerston North at the weekend, but had to pull out due to Covid.