Cneifwyr Cymreig i ymweld â Seland Newydd
A team of sheep shearers from Wales will travel to New Zealand in March 2009 to take part in a series of official Test competitions against the New Zealand national shearing team. This is the first time an official Test team from Wales has been invited by Shearing Sports NZ to compete in six specific competitions.
While in New Zealand the Welshmen will compete at six different locations with the first Test being held at the prestigious Golden Shears Championships. Two of the Tests will be against the New Zealand Development Team and four against the New Zealand National Team culminating at the New Zealand Championships from 1 – 4 April 2009.
New Zealand has produced some of the world’s top shearers including David Fagan, five times World Champion, Alan McDonald who won the individual world championship when the event was staged in Wales in 1994, and Paul Avery who won this year’s Championship in Norway. The Golden Shears World Shearing & Woolhandling Championships are to be staged again at the Royal Welsh Show in 2010 when approximately 30 national teams will be visiting Llanelwedd to compete.
On the New Zealand trip, Wales will be represented by Arwyn Ll. Jones of Maes Truan, Llanelidan, Ruthin, who is the team manager and will judge some of the competitions, and machine shearers Nicky Beynon of Bryn Yscallog, Burry Green, Gower, Swansea, and Gareth Daniel of Abergwydol, Penegoes, Machynlleth, Powys.
The Welsh team travelling to New Zealand in March returned recently from competing in the 2008 World Shearing Championships, staged this year in Norway, where Wales came third in the Machine Shearing team final. Nicky Beynon achieved eighth place and Gareth Daniel came 10th in the semi-finals of the Machine Shearing Individual Competition.
Elfed Jackson and Trefor Jones represented Wales in the Blade Shearing competitions where they achieved fifth place in the team event and Trefor Jones went on to achieve 12th in the semi-finals of the individual competition.
The two woolhandlers representing their country at the world championships – Bron Tango and Gwenan Paewai – just missed out on reaching the final stages of the individual and team competitions.