Shears champs start as Te Kuiti prepares for local swansong

Shears champs start as Te Kuiti prepares for local swansong

More than 200 shearers and woolhandlers are descending on the King Country town of Te Kuiti for the New Zealand Shearing Championships which started today and end on Saturday.

But all eyes will be on one man, legendary local hero and 16-times New Zealand Open champion David Fagan who has announced the championships will be his last, after 33 seasons of Open class shearing which has reaped about 640 wins throughout the World.

A significant force in the staging of the championships, he will make his first appearance tonight in a Speedshear at the Waitomo Club, about 200 metres from the Waitomo Community Cultural Centre where the championships are being held, as they have each year since emerging first as the King Country Shears in 1985.

He’s one of more than 60 in the open championship heats tomorrow, starting his bid to make the glamour final on Saturdaynight. He’s also in the North Island Shearer of the Year and New Zealand Shears Circuit semi-finals and will also shear in an inter-island match in the last of 60 competitions on the Shearing Sports New Zealand calendar.

Fagan will have competed at almost half of them, and has far won 12 finals, having shorn in 25.

If any special presentations are being made, Fagan was in the dark. But the front cover of the programme, usually reserved for defending champions had his photo on it when it arrived from the printer this week. “I didn’t know that was happening,” he said.

Committee spokesman Ed Morrow said rain in the area this week was needed and welcomed by thre farming community, but had the potential to put minor limits on the number of sheep, of which about 3500 will cross the six-stand pop-up shearing board erected on a stage usually used for cultural performances and official occasions.

As a consequence those leaving their entries to the last minute were earlier this week being urged to get-in quick or risk missing.out.

The biggest entry is in the Open shearing Championship, where 62 had entered by Tuesday night. Fagan has ceded favouritism to defending champion, 2014 World champion and Hastings shearer Rowland Smith, who has been unbeatable in four finals since returning to competition three weeks ago after a nine-month break.

Smith’s World championships teammate and fellow Hawke’s Bay shearer John Kirkpatrick had entered, but hasn’t shorn this summer because of a shoulder injury which needed surgery. He said yesterday if the surgeon reckons it’s OK he could shear in the heats, although he hasn’t shorn a single sheep for several months.

The Senior event has attracted 17 entries, Intermediate 26, Junior 23 and Novice 24.

The Open woolhandling has so far attracted 27 entries, the Senior woolhandling 10 and the Junior woolhandling 14.

Tonight’s Speedshear has attracted good entries, with 28 already booked in the Open-class. There had tonight been 10 entries for the Senior Speedshear.

ENDS

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