NZ couple take out lumberjack champs

A New Zealand couple have cleaned up at the 50th Lumberjack World Championships at Hayward, Wisconsin.

On Monday (NZ time) Jason Wynyard, 34, of Auckland, won five events, was second in two others, and easily captured his 11th consecutive all-around championship, the New York Times reported.

He and his wife, Karmyn - who won two events despite being six months pregnant - combined to win the jack and jill double buck (two-person sawing).

There were 114 professional competitors this year watched by 4500 spectators.

Jason Wynyard - the only full-time competitor in the field - was "built like an NFL defensive end with a buzz cut," the New York Times reported. "He speaks softly and carries a metal box of axes that hack through 30cm of aspen in little more than 15 seconds, and sheaths of 180cm-long saw blades that cut through 50cm pine logs in about 10sec.

Together, he and Karmyn won US$6175 ($9511).

"What the Lumberjack World Championships lack in prize money it makes up for in prestige," the newspaper reported.

The Wynyards compete mostly in New Zealand and Australia, and used to chase summer to North America, competing every weekend for three months.

But the circuit has shrunk in recent years, and they now only go for the world championships and the Timbersports series, sponsored by a chainsaw maker.

"I had big hopes," Jason Wynyard said of when he started his career in the mid-1990s. "I thought maybe it's going to really take off and be something big.

"It's a great spectator sport. But it hasn't really taken off. It's gone the other way, which is too bad."

The competition saws cost US$1500 to US$1800 each, and most serious competitors own several.

Axes can cost US$500 each, and competitors may own 20.

- NZPA