“If you want to take the sport seriously, you have to have home-training facilities,” he says. His day job involves running a construction company, so there’s no shortage of tools, nor the skills required to handle them. They rent a yard with all the required saws, axes and training facilities but, as Pugh, explains, the lion’s share of his practice is done in his workshop at home in Bala. Nowadays, he’s a member of a small wood-chopping club called the Clwyd Axemen, who offer demonstrations at agricultural shows and carnivals. “So I kept training and training, and I thought, ‘Bloody hell! I’m not too bad at this.’” “The guys said, ‘Come and do some training with us,’” he remembers. ![]() His first introduction was at a county show near his home in Wales. For the chainsaw events, ear and eye protection are mandatory, as well as protective trousers.Īlready five-time winner of the British Championships, Pugh has been doing this sport for 12 years now. Nevertheless, the safety regulations are strict. With power tools, and more than a bit of facial hair, there’s an unambiguous macho element to this sport. These axes are huge – nothing like you’d find in your local B&Q – and no one wants to see one flying off the stage. Others sharpen and lubricate their axe blades, or apply chalk to their palms to guarantee a secure grip. Some are donning special chainmail socks to protect their feet and legs from an errant chop. With such heavy equipment to wield, they need to be both strong and flexible. Meanwhile, off-stage, the other competitors are limbering up: doing lunges, and stretching their hips, calves and arms. In-between rounds, a crew leaps onto stage to clear away the offcuts, the wood chips, and the ever-mounting piles of sawdust. ![]() They compete two at a time on stage, with a referee checking every cut is performed correctly. His wife and two of his four kids are in the audience cheering him on.Ī post shared by Official STIHL TIMBERSPORTS® wood, mostly poplar, is secured in steel frames so that competitors can attack it with gusto. Pugh is in fine form, nimbly climbing to a position two metres off the ground, swinging his axe in a sweeping parabola that makes quick work of the trunk. It takes consummate skill and a great deal of strength. The most athletic of all was what’s known as the springboard, where competitors have to chop notches into a big tree trunk and then, climbing up onto a board wedged into those notches, they must sever the top of the trunk completely with their axe. He has already impressed the small crowd of supporters with his exploits in the previous disciplines. Thirty-nine-year-old Pugh, a builder from Bala, on the edge of Snowdonia, is doing his best to qualify for those world champs. But it’s the German chainsaw manufacturer Stihl which stages arguably the world’s leading competition, the Stihl Timbersports Series, with competitions across Europe, North America and Australia, culminating in an annual World Championship. ![]() Around the world there are different competitions with different events and different sponsors. It’s a sport known generically as wood-chopping. Pugh is competing at the Telford International Centre in the Stihl Timbersports British Pro Championship, a professional event that sees the nation’s finest axe men chopping and chainsawing their way through various lumps of wood, testing their skills as well as their fitness and strength. Powered by a 250cc, 70hp go-kart engine, and armed with a 32-inch blade, it slices through an 18-inch-thick tree trunk in seconds. Champion lumberjack Elgan Pugh is on stage, wielding his custom-built cutting machine. How deafening? 125 decibels is one conservative estimate – not much less than a jetplane taking off. ![]() The air is thick with sawdust, exhaust fumes and the deafening roar of an enormous chainsaw.
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