The poor tree never saw it coming.
Allison Briscoe leaned back and threw her axe dead centre into the painted target, drawing cheers from the crowd and, were it capable of speaking, a muffled scream from the tormented timber.
The 15-year-old from Port McNeill, who went onto winning the women’s axe throw Sunday at the annual Kaslo Logger Sports, has been throwing axes since she was 11. Briscoe said hitting a bull’s eye has more to do with focus than strength.
“You want to look right at the bull’s eye,” she said. “Don’t be looking at any other ones because you’ll be most likely to hit there afterwards. So you want to focus on the bull’s eye and release at it. Just focus on the axe throwing and nothing else.”
The women’s axe throw was one of 27 events held over the weekend, all of which was filmed for an episode of Tougher Than It Looks, which will air this fall on the Discovery channel.
The sound of chainsaws and the sight of contestants climbing trees were enough to keep a large crowd glued to their seats despite the gloomy weather. See below for more pictures of the event.
