WHAT IS STIHL TIMBERSPORTS®?
Stihl TIMBERSPORTS® is an international extreme sports competition series. Its roots lie in Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand, where workers in the timber industry would hold competitions to determine who was the fastest in a range of wood chopping and sawing disciplines that closely simulated their everyday work.
Today the world’s best athletes compete in national and international events featuring three axe disciplines and three sawing disciplines. Springboard, Underhand Chop and Standing Block Chop are the classic axe disciplines; Single Buck (single-man cross-cut saw), Stock Saw (standard chainsaw) and Hot Saw (tuned, customized chainsaw with up to 80 horsepower) are the sawing disciplines. Athletes compete against each other and the clock.
WHAT TO EXPECT AT THE TIMBERSPORTS® WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
In a nutshell, the world’s best athletes sawing and chopping at speed in a breath-taking spectacle of tremendous athleticism, strength, precision and power.
Friday night is the team knock-out competition. Each country has a four-man line-up that complete four TIMBERSPORTS® disciplines in a relay, head-to-head with another team. The first man takes on the Stock Saw. As soon as he has finished, the next team member starts the Underhand Chop discipline, closely followed by the third man on the 2-metre long Single Buck saw. Finally, the last discipline in the relay is the Standing Block Chop. With over 20 nations taking part in this event the atmosphere is electric.
The stage is then set for Saturday and the Individual World Championship. The fastest 12 athletes from around the world take each other on for the ultimate title in a knock-out system of three rounds.
In round 1, athletes accumulate points based on how quickly they complete the Underhand Chop, the Stock Saw and the Standing Block Chop disciplines.
The bottom four competitors don’t proceed to the next round. Only the top eight get the chance to show their mettle on the Single Buck and the Springboard disciplines in round 2.
Round 3 sees another two athletes cut from the competition with the top six taking on the mighty Hot Saw as the pinnacle of the Championship. This beast of a saw is a specially tuned chainsaw, weighing around 27kg, with a timber-destroying chain speed of 240km/h.
Join us to discover whether TIMBERSPORTS® legend Jason Wynyard can take home a 10th World Championship title or whether local boy, GB’s Elgan Pugh, can enjoy the home crowd advantage. Get your discounted tickets today, at www.echoarena.com/timbersports using promotion code DEAL20.