I know this is a Oly lifting site - but this was pretty cool

[Arden Cogar Jr.]

My other hobby, besides Olympic Weightlifting, is competing in Timbersports or Lumberjack Sports.

Recently, I spent 12 weeks getting ready for a very difficult endurance based event called the Stihl Timbersports Champion's Trophy. It was filmed Live on Eurosport from the site in St. Johann Austria. It was hard and fun. But the Live TV element was extremely exciting and stressful for we athletes.

8 athletes were invited to compete. The top 6 from last years Stihl Timbersports Worlds, a host country representative, and a "wild card" invite. Normally, in my sport, you do one discipline at a time. But this event had the athletes doing 4 disciplines back to back.

The top four athletes were seeded the night prior to filming by doing time trials. I had the fastest time in the time Trials. Wynyard from New Zealand was second. Ebner from Germany was third. Komerek from Czech Republic was fourth. The other 4 athletes drew their position in a lottery as part of the live broadcast. I drew Lauer from Austria. Komerek drew Hewett from Canada. Ebner drew Gehin from France. And Wynyard drew Geissler from Switzerland.

Here's my wife's footage from the first round. All seeded athletes won except Hewett beat Komerek.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRZxEzKeNgc

Semi-Finals: myself against Hewett and Wynyard versus Ebner

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OYgOXKzhe8

Finals - Me and Wynyard
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYThKz4Zz_c

Here's the Eurosport version of the same thing - wayyyyy better quality

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avoxGe4mBTw

This was really fun and I wanted to share. My olympic lifting and my strength training is geared toward making me a better Timbersports athlete. I'm doing very well for a 40 year old sedentary white collar stiff who sits behind a desk for up to 60 hours a week.

All the best,
Arden