Gisborne pair win first titles at Golden Shears

MEDIA RELEASE
On behalf of Shearing Sports New Zealand
February 28, 2013

Gisborne pair win first titles at Golden Shears

Gisborne may have lost its railway, but the shearing industry in the area is right on track judging by the efforts of two teenagers who won the first two events decided on the first day of the 53rd Golden Shears in Masterton today.
The pair are 19-year-old James Alford, who won the Novice shearing final, and Tameka Purdy (also known as Tameka Hema) , 17, of Gisborne, who won the inaugural Golden Shears Novice woolhandling competition.

Alford had won two earlier Novice competitions, at Wairoa and Dannevirke, but it was first-up for Purdy who’d never contemplated entering any woolhandling competition till mentor Ailsa Fleming, of Te Karaka, talked her into it less than 24 hours before the event.

The titles were the first of more than 20 being decided at the three-day championships which have attracted more than 300 competitors, including more than 40 from overseas.

The feature events are the Open shearing and woolhandling events, the finals of which will be contested in front of about 1800 spectators in Masterton’s War Memorial Stadium on Saturday night.

Former Northland shearer Rowland Smith, now settled in Hastings, has been established as favourite for the glamour shearing event, with the TAB reporting there had been a $2500 bet on the two-metre tall star who has won eight finals in the last six weeks but who is yet to win a Golden Shears Open.

A feature performance on the first day was that of Masterton teenager David Gordon, who after competing in two woolpressing events and one woolhandling event then shore three sheep to become top qualifier for the Intermediate shearing semi-finals to be shorn today.

He also qualified for the Junior woolhandling sem-finals and he and oldest sister Cushla Abraham qualified for the woolpressing pairs final.

Gordon, who at the 50th anniversary Golden Shears in 2010 won the Novice shearing title won by his sister two years earlier, has overcome a minor hand injury in a final at Apiti on Saturday to win the major warm-up event for his grade at the Pahiatua Shears the next day .

RESULTS from the 53rd Golden Shears in Masterton on Thursday-Saturday, February 28-March 2, 2013:

Shearing
Novice final (2 sheep): James Alford (Gisborne) 7min 33.757sec, 28.688pts, 1; Laura Bradley (Woodville) 6min 31.582sec, 30.579pts, 2; Paul Knyvett (Matamata) 7min 5.644sec, 34.282pts, 3; Mike Boyd (Dargaville) 6min 16.654pts, 4; Chris Sandall (Auckland) 6min 7.867sec, 44.893pts, 5; Mat Macrae (Masterton) 5min 57..08sec, 49.885pts, 6.

Woolhandling:
Novice final: Tameka (Durdy (Gisborne) 90.6pts, 1; Liana Rangiawha (Rauranga) 109pts, 2; Jared Fletcher (Winton) 118pts, 3; Natalya Rangiawha (Taihape) 121pts, 4.
ENDS

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