Woodchopper wins sports award
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.
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.
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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.
