Series launches in Christchurch
October 14, 2022
The New Zealand Corriedale Championships at the New Zealand Agricultural Show in Christchurch, will signal a new era in competition shearing, with the launch of The Southern Series. The new series is designed “to take the extreme sport of sheep-shearing to a global audience, increasing prize-money and helping to promote wool as a sustainable, natural fibre”, Event Manager Hugh de Lacy (snr) says.
“Our prime objective is to support and promote competitive shearing and, by doing that, help get the message to the world that wool is a wonderful, sustainable, renewable fibre. And, one of best the ways to tell that story is to have a consistent series of events that provide a consistent platform for that messaging,” de Lacy said.
New Zealand Agricultural Show general manager Tracy Ahern says the Southern Series will bring a lot more exposure to shearing and help showcase the Agriculture Park. “When people come to Christchurch to have that on their places to go list is really important and one day we’d like to be the home of international shearing,” she said.
The launch of the Southern Shears circuit at this year’s New Zealand Agricultural Show is the first step in bringing the ancient and extreme sport of sheep-shearing to a global audience. No other sport is remotely as demanding of both skill and endurance as shearing, which had its genesis 10,000 years ago when mankind first began domesticating sheep. Over the next two years, The Southern Series will be expanded first into a tour of New Zealand competitions, and then used as template for similar ventures in Europe, North America and Australia, beamed out live on television to potentially millions of viewers world-wide.
“Not only will competitive shearers benefit financially from hugely increased recognition as supreme athletes, but the global exposure will highlight the relevance of wool in the battle against climate change, by reducing or eliminating the immense damage done to the environment by oil-derived fibres,” de Lacy said.
Sustainability is a also a key concern at the New Zealand Agricultural Show and Ahern is well aware of wools part in the picture. “Well, there are extraordinary uses for it. We know get it in skin care, we now get it in make-up, it’s the warmest product, you know amazing things. Last year on out TVNZ show we focussed on surfboards being made from it. I think you know as New Zealanders we need to celebrate what we’re good at and I’d really like to see the industry grow and be put up on a pedestal so that we all start using natural fibres.”
Tracy Ahern welcomes The Southern Series.
de Lacy is on the same page. “I always like to borrow a marvellous phrase from Mavis Mullins, who recently used the term ‘soft footprint’ to describe the wool industry I don’t think there’s a better way to portray it.”
No short-cuts
It takes a good ten years of year-round work for a shearer to rise from learner to the point where he is competitive at the highest level – and there are no short-cuts. The physical exertion in shearing has been measured at the equivalent of running at 7km an hour, and shearers do it for eight or nine hours a day for as many days in a row as there are dry sheep to shear.
All this effort is condensed into 20 thrilling minutes of a shearing competition final where the race is on to minimise the stress to the sheep by relieving it of its fleece in the shortest possible time with the least discomfort for the sheep.
No other sport demands such extreme training, and shearers are usually in their early-to-mid thirties before they begin making it into the six-man finals.