Golden Shears set to start in Masterton

Golden Shears set to start in Masterton

Hundreds of competitors are descending on Masterton for the 55th Golden Shears international shearing and woolhandling championships which starttomorrow (Thursday) and end on Saturday.

Over 320 competitors are entered in the 22 events, but much attention will be on legendary Te Kuiti shearer David Fagan, who is retiring at the end of the season after 37 years of competitive shearing in which he has won 640 finals worldwide.

Fagan, 53, is one of more than 70 competitors in the glamour event, in which he has reached the final 26 times and posted 16 wins. His first final was in 1984 when runner-up to brother John, and he won the event for the first time in 1986. He last won in 2009.

He has won at least 25 other events at the Golden Shears, including nine wins in the National Circuit final, for which he is also the favourite.

The championships start with lower grade shearing and woolhandling heats preliminary stages in three woolpressing competitions, the pace stepping-up with the Open shearing and woolhandling heats on Friday morning.

A transtasman test will be held on Friday night, and the big finals will be held along with a shearing test between New Zealand and Australia on Saturdaynight.

A special feature will be a reunion of about 16 of the Open shearing championship finals from the first two decades of the Golden Shears, among them 81-year-old Southlander Ian “Snow” Harrison, the lone survivor of the first Open final in 1961.

Another feature will will be a wool-sculpting competition held in conjunction with a Speedshear on Thursday night.

Large numbers of overseas competitors will be at the shears, from as far afield as Scotland and southern Chile.

The Golden Shears in Masterton is regarded as the World’s major shearing and woolhandling festival, spurning a Golden Shears World Championships which were first held in England in 1977 and attract about 30 countries when held every 2-3 years.

ENDS

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