As the sun set on Olds' time as host of the 60th World Plowing Championship, people halfway around the world were awaking to news that a daughter of Austria and a son of the Republic of Ireland were the victors at the event.
As the sun set on Olds' time as host of the 60th World Plowing Championship, people halfway around the world were awaking to news that a daughter of Austria and a son of the Republic of Ireland were the victors at the event.
Barbara Klaus, a pig and sugar beet farmer from St. Pölten, Austria, became only the second woman ever to be named a world plowing champion, taking the top spot overall in the conventional plowing category.
And John Whelan of County Wexford in the Republic of Ireland was named overall champion in the reversible plowing category. Olds College hosted the event, which launched on July 11 with the main competitions taking place on July 19 and 20, on behalf of the Canadian Plowing Organization.
For the two days of competition, the participants worked under the flags of their home nations and a scorching summer sun, carving dark, brown, impossibly straight lines through the landscape.
With patience and persistence, the competitors would measure, adjust a blade, measure again and then manoeuvre their tractor with the utmost precision with craned necks and sweaty brows.
After the Irish and French dominated the standings after the first day of competition on July 19 when the 57 participants from 29 countries were tasked with plowing fields of stubble south of the college's campus, it seemed certain that plowmen from northwestern Europe would be victors.
But on July 20, when competitors had to plow grassland plots, Klaus, 24, was able to tally 194.5 points in the conventional category to win first place in that category for the day. With that total added to her 172 points from the stubble plowing, Klaus edged out second place overall conventional plowman Fabien Landré of Saint-Laurent Sur Saône, France, and third-place conventional plowman Eamonn Tracey of the Republic of Ireland, to win the Golden Plow trophy.
"I feel very happy and incredible," Klaus said with translation assistance from her friend, Daniela Schildendorfer. "I didn't expect it."
She added she had dreamed of winning the world championship from the time she was 10 years old and Helga Wielander of Austria, who was the first woman to become a world plowing champion in 1993, was her "biggest idol."
"She won 20 years ago and now I win."
At the same time that Klaus took top spot in conventional grassland plowing, her fellow Austrian competitor, Margareta Heigl, 21, won gold in the reversible grassland plowing competition.
Whelan, 43, had come in second in that category behind Heigl, but had placed first in reversible stubble plowing the day before and his points totals from the two days made him overall reversible plowing champion.
"I'm absolutely overwhelmed," he said. "We put an awful lot of work into the preparation to come in here. I always knew the plow was running pretty well."
He added it was more difficult to plow the grassland than the stubble.
"The soil was more difficult to deal with now today. I felt yesterday was very easy, just dropped the plow and away she went. But today was a battle."
The last time the Republic of Ireland took home a championship was in 2009 and Whelan, a dairy farmer, said he was happy to bring the Golden Furrows Challenge Trophy home to the Emerald Isle.
"We knock at the door a lot of times. We've got a lot of seconds and thirds and fourths. This time, luck fell my way and the man above smiled kindly on me as well," he said. "There will be a lot of partying in Ireland when I get back."
Whelan's fellow Republic of Ireland competitor, Tracey, had taken first place in the conventional stubble plowing competition, followed by Landré and Ashley Boyles of Lincolnshire, England.
Conventional plows create two furrows, or narrow trenches, in the ground in the same direction, usually to the right, while reversible plows will throw soil in one direction on a pass and then rotate 180 degrees to throw furrows to the other direction.
The difference between stubble plowing and grassland plowing is that the soil beneath the straw-like stubble is loose while the soil beneath the grass is stiff and firm.
In the stubble and grassland categories, judges looked at 20 attributes such as the straightness, depth, uniformity and general appearance of each furrow.
As for the Canadian competitors, Barry Timbers of Sunderland, Ont., came in 10th overall in conventional plowing and Brian Fried of Bright, Ont., came in seventh overall in reversible plowing.
Timbers' father, Robert, had competed in the very first World Plowing Championship in Cobourg, Ont., in 1953 and was on hand to watch his son perform.
"It's always an honour to have him around," Barry said. "He went for many, many years to the world (championship) and because of age he kind of retired from it."
Robert said his son faced tougher conditions and opponents this year than he did 60 years ago.
"This is a tough competition."
But with a son, two grandsons and a great-grandson involved with plowing, he's happy to see his legacy carry on.
"I'm glad to see them doing it," he said. "It's a great tradition in our family."
Anna Marie McHugh, the World Ploughing Organization's general secretary, said organizers and volunteers in Olds were very helpful and friendly and the college was a great venue because the competition grounds were right beside the campus where competitors were lodged and where the organization had set up its headquarters.
"The campus has been fabulous."
She said there was one "minor accident" in the marshalling yard on July 19 where a Slovenian competitor, Jure Filak, was doing work on his plow and injured his arm.
Filak was able to plow in the grassland event on July 20, however, wearing a brace on his arm, McHugh added.
"He wasn't going to miss his day in the sunshine."
Kerry Moynihan, general manager of the college's organizing team, worked with 300 volunteers for three years to prepare for the event and he said he was thrilled with the result.
"It's been outstanding."
On July 19, he added, 4,000 people attended the championship and roughly 7,000 people came on July 20.
"That's double our (projected) numbers," Moynihan said. "We're very pleased."
Overall, Moynihan's team had a $1.5-million budget to work with and he said he expected the college would break even in the end.
But he expected the broader Olds community will really reap the benefits from hosting the event.
"We hopefully put some economic development into the area," Moynihan said.
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