DOMINANT: Jack Jordan was a class above at the NZ Stihl Timbersports Championships in Palmerston North last Saturday. PHOTO SUPPLIED
King Country farmer Jack Jordan has continued his dominance in the New Zealand woodchopping circles.
He beat Jason Wynyard and nine other competitors to win the NZ Stihl Timbersports Men’s National Championship.
Jordan – who claimed the same title two years ago – won all but one of the woodchopping and wood sawing disciplines for a convincing victory, and will now go on to represent New Zealand at the Stihl Timbersports World Championships in Germany later this year. His older brother, Shane Jordan, finished third.
“Yeah it is unreal. It was a huge honour to win those awards [on Friday night] and awesome to win out here again today against a tough field like the rest of them; I’m rapt with it,” Jordan said.
He is off to the Sydney Royal Easter Show next month, where he hopes to perform strongly.
“I will start training for the hard wood now and hopefully I can go alright over there.”
Jordan was full of praise for his brother, Shane.
“It’s awesome to be able to compete against my brother like that. We push each other along. You go to shows and if I don’t win and he does, it’s still great.”
The 26-year-old said it would take a bit for him to defend his world title.
“I will have to do a fair bit of work over all the disciplines and get a bit more consistent with the harder events and you never know what could happen.”
After competing at Palmerston North, he headed to Kumeu.
The world championship event will be one Jordan, of Kurikau, hopes goes smoothly as he sets out to defend his title from 2022, where he defeated former world champion Jason Lentz of Austria in the final.
Following that event, Jordan said the next year was going to be big in terms of competing for him as he was aiming to compete as much as possible.
It’s a strong start to the year for the former Taranaki Bulls lock who capped off a great couple of days with Saturday’s result having, on Friday evening, also been awarded the NZ Rural Sports Person of the Year Supreme Award.
On his way to the national title, Jordan, who stands 1.93 metres tall, battled against Rotorua’s Kyle Lemon, Auckland’s Wynyard, his brother Shane, Bobby Dowling, formerly of Southland now based in Australia, Aucklander Nathan McDonald, Christchurch wood chopper Jesse Whitehead, Ōtaki’s Hayden Rasmussen, Charles Hall, of Tauranga and fellow King Country competitor Ōtorohanga’s Chris Lord.
They competed in six events: the underhand chop, the stock saw, standing block, single saw, springboard and hot saw.
Wynyard, a nine-time World Stihl Timbersports Champion and continuing rival of Jordan, was also honoured with a Lifetime Legacy to Rural Sports award at the same ceremony as part of the NZ Rural Games event in Palmerston North last weekend, where he finished second to Jordan.
Palmerston North also hosted the NZ Stihl Timbersports national champs for women and rookies (under 21s), which saw King Country’s Morgan Bolstad taking part.
