BEARD & WONDERFUL
A global whisker-growing war has broken out. Keith Tamkei talks to the American beardsman who hopes to end the reign of the German hairticulturists
‘SHAVING is for men who want to look more like women,” says Phil Olsen, captain of Beard Team USA. OK, but “bearding”? A sport? Yes — and a noble one at that.
“It’s a sport because we have judges,” says Olsen. “We have controversy, we sing the national anthem at the start of the competition, and we compete against each other to see who is the best. That to me is what a sport is. It is a major commitment.”
Give men a competition and we bloom like a field of daisies. Beating chests and fluffing plumage, wielding wooden bats and maiming with studs is what we do.
The sports industry has tapped into this instinct, using its heroes as dandies of lucrative endorsement — whacking balls to flog Breitlings and tight underwear.
Very few modern sports are untouched. There are pockets of amateur purity, where competition is fierce, but the only sponsors of your magnificent prowess are tall tales and cold beers.
Bearding is one of them.
Olsen is the promoter-in-chief of bearding in the US, where it is increasingly popular. His team has just returned from the World Beard and Moustache Championships, held in the German town of Leinfelden-Echterdingen, with a clutch of 15 out of the 54 trophies.
On the phone from the US, Olsen tells me that pure coincidence and curiosity led him to his first competition in 1999 in Sweden. “I noticed two things there. Although it was called the world championships, it was limited to a small number of countries, almost exclusively in northern Europe, with Germany clearly the dominant country. The other thing was that America was completely under-represented.”
He returned home with a mission to cultivate bearding in the US. Since then, the Americans have held four national championships and are a constant threat to German domination at the international meet. South Africa has never been represented.
Heading to the competition, Olsen was confident of his team’s chances. “It is going to be tough to beat the Germans on their own turf but we’ve got a really strong squad. We’ve got some serious facial hair representing America.”
According to worldbeardchampionships.com, there is an Italian claim to the sport of bearding. But the world championships in its current form
Olsen concedes the training regimen is less than punishing
has its roots in Germany, when the First Höfener Beard Club hosted the event in 1990. Olsen believes this heritage is the reason for their dominance; Germans have long refined preening, twisting and growing into an art. He also blames Teutonic organisational prowess for the country’s beard-superpower status.
In the competition, there are 18 judging categories. The “English”-styled moustache is slender and ends in slightly raised tips — but Lord Kitchener’s facial thatch, were he to enter the competition, would be classified as the fuller Hungarian type, adopted from the 16th-century Hussars. This year, for the first time, the medal in this category went to a Hungarian.
Beards are divided into three categories: full, partial and trend, which are further subdivided. Olsen, whose beard is wide and rounded at the bottom, competes in the Garibaldi section.
One of the most outlandish categories is freestyle, in which participants can spend up to three hours styling their beards.
Olsen concedes that the training regimen is less than punishing. “This is the ultimate sport for the couch potato. After you’ve done nothing for a few months, you’ll have a pretty good beard.”
As in all sports, the beard world championships is not without strife. Controversy usually centres on the judging process and the clarity of requirements — and, according to Olsen, reflects the difference between the German and US philosophies.