12/21/24
January 17, 2012
Not for the Sheepish ... or is it?: New Zealand produces some of the world's best shearers and its national championship, the Golden Shears, receives substantial media coverage; but the IOC is unlikely to be persuaded that it should be an Olympic demonstration sport. [more inside]
Look, I'll just refrain from commenting, OK?
posted by owlhouse at 08:01 PM on January 17, 2012
My local PBS station had a bit on sheep shearing and they did a great job in showing it as half wrestling, half barber work. First-timers were exhausted after shearing only a couple of sheep and it took them forever to do each one. So, shearing a lamb every 38.8 seconds is a remarkable thing to me, even if they've been doing it for years.
posted by NoMich at 08:04 PM on January 17, 2012
Awesome. I knew who posted this when it came up in the sportsfilter twitter stream :)
posted by justgary at 06:20 PM on January 18, 2012
The decisions to include a sport as a demonstration are made — at minimum — 6 years in advance, so you won't see Ivan Scott of Ireland or Kerri-Jo Te Huia of New Zealand showing off their mad shearing skills in London or Rio. Ivan set a world eight-hour solo lamb record by shearing 749 lambs (one lamb every 38.8 seconds!), while Kerri-Jo smashed the women's equivalent record by 37 by shearing 507 lambs (57.6 seconds per lamb).