HIGHLAND GAMES - Wee heavy to take on the best

A "wee" laddie from Whangarei has been honoured as one of the strongest dozen Scotsmen in the world.
Pat Hellier has been invited to and will attend the "Gathering 2009" in Edinburgh, Scotland in July where he will compete in the 2009 Deuchars World Highland Games Heavy Events Championship.
Hellier, the New Zealand Caledonian champion, is currently ranked in the top-10 Highland Games "heavy" athletes in the world after finishing ninth at the world championships last year in Colorado.
Chances are he will receive unprecedented attention at the Gathering this year with more than 55,000 people already confirmed for the event from outside the United Kingdom alone.
The top 12 heavies will compete in eight core disciplines, including tossing the caber and the hammer throw. It is a gruelling competition which draws the crowd's attention, holding a very important position in the Highland Games programme.
Hellier has been a great ambassador for New Zealand, the Waipu Caledonian Society and as well as the Highland Games Movement in New Zealand. He now lives in Auckland, where he is a respected police officer.
The World Highland Games Heavy Events Championships began in 1973 and the event has become the most important date in the calendar for leading international heavies.
Great athletes from home and abroad have competed in the World Championships including Olympic Games competitors and Commonwealth medallists and champions from nearly every continent.