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Jack Jordan on the Hot Saw.
Going one better than a frustratingly close second place finish at last year's event, the country's top axeman, Jack Jordan of Taumaranui, last weekend won the Stihl Timbersports World Championship individual event in.
Jordan was jostling for the top spot in a 12-strong field, battling with legendary Australian Brayden Meyer right up until the last of six disciplines, the volatile, super-powered Hot Saw.
Falling at this hurdle last year, this time Jordan calmed his nerves and the high-powered machine to record a personal best time of 6.30 seconds and win his first individual world championship crown.
It was the 28-year-old King Country farmer's third appearance at an individual World Championship - the more traditional, long-form format across six different disciplines, compared to the faster, four-discipline format STIHL Timbersports World Trophy competition that Jordan had won three consecutive times.
Jordan joins the illustrious company of Jason Wynyard and David Bolstad as the only other Kiwi to ever win the coveted Timbersports World Championship individual title. Jordan finished the competition just four points ahead of Meyer with Poland's Szymon Groenwald third.
"It was tough dog fight all day, but I knew it was going to be. Leading up to the competition, I didn't train too much on the chopping events, but instead focused on my weaker events, which were the three events that I won today, confirming that the targeted training paid off, and I came away with the gold!" says Jordan.
Jordan was the sole New Zealand representative in the individual competition, after he topped a 10-strong field at the NZ National Stihl Timbersports finals in March this year.
The New Zealand team of Jordan, Cleveland Cherry, Quintin Fawcett and Chris Lord finished just out of the medals in fourth place, in a 15-strong field, the day before the individual competition.
Australia, Sweden and Poland finished first, second, and third positions respectively, with the Chopperoos taking a seventh consecutive team victory.
National and world records tumbled as top Kiwi axeman claimed two Stihl Timbersports world titles at the same event in Budapest, Hungary over the first weekend in June.
Just four months after being declared clinically dead, Kiwi axeman Kahu Woolley is back on the chopping block this weekend - literally.
Woodchopping champ Jack Jordan has won the Young New Zealand Rural Sportsperson of the Year award at the 2017 Norwood New Zealand Rural Sports Awards.
The Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners (the College) and Hauora Taiwhenua Rural Health Network are calling for investment in a proposed new training pathway for rural GPs, warning that many rural practices are struggling to recruit while a large share of the existing workforce nears retirement.
Federated Farmers has called on Central Otago District Council (CODC) to drop or vote down a plan to truck sludge from Alexandra and Cromwell to farmland near Lauder, warning it would compound an "outrageous" situation created by a separate council's decision weeks earlier.
Synlait has swung to second-half profit as operations stabilise, but the dairy processor still posted a $75.4m annual loss.
LIC shareholders have elected a new North Island representative to the co-operative's Board, along with five representatives to its Shareholder Reference Group (SRG), following the company's Annual Meeting held in Invercargill.
Farmers across parts of Southland and South Otago are continuing to deal with difficult conditions after a prolonged run of wet weather, with pressure building around feed supply, stock management, pasture damage, farm infrastructure and everyday workloads.
Federated Farmers says it welcomes Labour's commitment to reviewing the Sharemilking Agreements Act, calling on other major parties to do the same.
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