Shearing Competition Cancelled

27 February

The 50th anniversary Pahiatua Shears, which were to have been held tomorrow (Sunday) have been cancelled following tonight’s announcement of Covid-19 Level 2 Alert being put in place for a week from 6am.

The Pahiatua Shears is the last shearing event leading up to the three-day 61st Golden Shears scheduled to start in Masterton on Thursday but also now unlikely to go ahead.

Also impacted are the Wairarapa Pre-Shears Woolhandling Championships scheduled to take place in the Riverside Farm woolshed at Mikimiki, north of Masterton, on Saturday.

More than 100 shearers were expected for the Pahiatua Shears, most having also taken part in the Taumarunui Shears on Friday and the Apiti Shears today(Saturday).

The championships, in a woolshed in Mangaone Valley, southeast of Pahiatua, were to have incorporated the compulsory fifth and last qualifying round of the National Shearing Circuit, with four top competitors from Southland having already flown north for the event, aiming for the semi-finals and final which are scheduled to take place at the Golden Shears.

But Golden Shears president Sam Saunders said before the weekend that the World’s most prestigious shearing and woolhandling championships, held in Masterton’s War Memorial Stadium every year since 1961 and with about 300 shearers, woolhandlers and wool pressers entered, could not go

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