Broadford’s world champion woodchopper Brayden Meyer will compete in the STIHL Timbersports Australian Championships, for the first time in a virtual manner.
The competition will take place on Sunday, November 15 with Victoria, Queensland, New South Wales and Tasmania each represented by three of their best athletes at a different location in each state.
They will go head-to-head across six traditional logging disciplines including the underhand chop, standing block chop, springboard chop, single buck saw, STIHL stock saw and hot saw.
Athletes accumulate points based on their times in the six disciplines, however this year, the athletes won’t find out the winner until the competition is aired globally ‘as-live’ along with the rest of the world.
Filming for the as-live broadcast will take place in the week leading up to the air date, with athletes kept in the dark about their opponents’ times.
Meyer, 24, said the competition was going to be different but should be a good spectacle for everyone watching live.
“It’ll be a little bit different without crowds, but you still have to put up your best cuts when you can and strive for a gold medal,” he said.
“I expect to do pretty well, I’ve done a little bit of training but it’ll be a little bit hard because there’s only three off us in the state doing it and we’re three of the best so the pressure will be on each other to do the best and hopefully we can go forward.
“I’m pretty excited for it, I haven’t really done any Timbersports since February so it’ll be good once we can get back into it.”
While a ticket to the world championships is most likely off the table due to the COVID-19 pandemic, athletes will still compete for a slice of the $30,000 prize pool.
The STIHL Timbersports Virtual Australian Championships live stream will air worldwide on the STIHL Timbersports Facebook and YouTube channels at 8pm on Sunday, November 15. Highlights of the championships will air on 7Mate in early 2021.
