FERGUS – The tug-of-war is back, the unturnable caber is back and the Heavy Events World Championship returns to the Fergus Scottish Festival, running Aug. 11 to 13.
The latter is expected to bring out some big competition, both in skill level and size of the competitors such as six foot seven inch and 290 pound Damien Fisher from Washington State and American champion John Van Beuren, standing at six foot eight inches tall and 320 lbs.
“You’re going to see some really big boys this year,” said Christoph Wand, Heavy Events World Championship organizer with the Fergus Scottish Festival, at a promotional press event Wednesday at the Centre Wellington Sportsplex grounds.
This year will mark the third time the Heavy Events World Championships will be held at the Fergus Scottish Festival, last time was in 2012.
Wand said it was slated to come back in 2020 but was pushed back due to COVID cancellations but some of the top Highland game athletes will be competing for the Webster Cup, named after founder David Webster
Although the Heavy Events World Championships were founded in the 1980s, the games themselves have roots dating back to the 11th Century according to Wand.
“One of the Scottish Kings, King Malcom (Canmore), held the games and from the strongest and fastest men chose his bodyguards,” Wand explained.
“Over the years in Scotland, Highland Games, one of the features has been the heavy events and these tests of strength and they follow the Scots wherever they went through the world and some of their sister cultures as well.”
Canadian and international competitors will put their skills to the test in events like hammer toss, various stone and weight throwing for height and distance and the caber toss. The event will bring out the “unturnable caber” — turning means successfully flipping the caber longwise by tossing it in the air by hand.
“We picked a tree that we thought only the very best athlete in the world could turn it and we put a $500 bounty on it every year,” said Warren Trask, heavy events chair.
Despite the name, the caber has been turned at the last World Championships held in Ferus where this was done twice.
The unturnable caber now has a bounty of $5,000.
“We didn’t want a caber that nobody could turn but we want a caber that’s known around the world that if you turn that caber, all of a sudden you’re at a level that only two other athletes have done,” Trask said. “There may be other athletes in the world that could do it but they’re not necessarily good enough at all the events to be invited to Fergus.”
Festival president Matthew Bennett-Monty said it takes 325 volunteers to transform 60 acres in Fergus into a world class event.
Although there is much more to the Fergus Scottish Festival — including a headlining performance by Glass Tiger, an appearance by Highlander actor Richard Rankin, clans, camping and vendors — getting to host the Heavy Events World Championship is the “crowning jewel this year.”
“This is really quite a big deal for us,” Bennett-Monty said.
