Meet the women breaking world records in lumberjack sports

Karolina Urbanova had never heard of lumberjack sports until a new neighbour moved into her small Czech village and enlisted her help for events when she was a teenager.

Now 24, she has just broken two world records at the annual Lumberjack World Championships, which were held over the weekend in Hayward, Wisconsin.

The competition, which Hayward has been hosting since 1960, brings people from across America and around the world together to showcase their skills in everything from logrolling, chopping and sawing to speed climbing.

Men and women mainly compete separately but some events are mixed.

This year, 40 women from across the US and abroad joined 66 male competitors – a far cry from the female representation Urbanova saw when she started out.

"There were maybe like three girls doing this sport in Europe," she tells the BBC, adding: "Telling people from the city that you are chopping wood usually every day, they looked weird at me."

"It makes me different … so it is what it is."

Urbanova was talent-spotted by a male competitor alongside her mother and sister and they began training weekly in a barn - trying out different axes and techniques and getting pointers from more experienced athletes as they entered competitions throughout Europe and further afield.

She discovered she was fast, and her new records prove it. In the Women's Standing Block category, where an axe is used to speed-chop through an upright, vertical block of wood, she cut through 9in (22.8cm) of white pine in 19.38 seconds. The previous record was 21.17 seconds.

In the Women's Underhand Chop, where competitors stand on a piece of wood and chop between their feet, she cut through 11in of white pine in 21.28 seconds. The fastest previous time was 24.26.

Urbanova is perhaps the quintessential example of lumberjack sports' expanding reach, particularly among women. She says that while they are niche in America, they're nearly unheard of in the Czech Republic.

That is not the case for Meredith Ingbretson, a Hayward native, who also broke a record at the world championships – winning the Women's Boom Run, where competitors race back and forth across eight linked cedar logs. Her time was 13.78 seconds – less than a second faster than the previous record of 13.98.

She said she'd buckled down in the past year - cutting out alcohol and anything else that "didn't align" with achieving her long-held goal.

Ingbretson was introduced to lumberjack sports at age three. They are a big part of life in Hayward, which was founded on the timber industry in 1880. It is a place where, as Ingbretson puts it, every resident "has probably been in logrolling lessons at least for one summer".

She has now been competing in logrolling for 28 years and began sawing and chopping more recently.

The number of female competitors in lumberjack sports has more than trebled in the past 30 years, according to Samantha LaSalle, event director of the Lumberjack World Championships. She's been involved with the sports since she was five, and her six-year-old daughter is already following in her footsteps.

While women have taken part in the world championships since the inaugural event in 1960, they were originally limited to logrolling. Getting them entry into chopping and sawing block events as well took time, LaSalle explains.

The Women's Standing Block [Chop], for instance, which Urbanova set the new record for, was only added in 2022.

"They [women] were saying: 'We can do more. We can do this event that the men have traditionally done'," said LaSalle.

"And as more of them practiced and got competitive in it, we said, you know what? There's enough gals that can do this, and do this at a high level, and we need to allow them to do that just like the men do.

"Now we're seeing those times drop each year - which just shows you how much better everyone is getting."

Both Urbanova and Ingbretson are fuelled by the love of competing and train all year - lifting weights, jogging, doing other cardio and refining their axe skills. They are also drawn by the familial and collegiate atmosphere, as well as the ability to travel and make friends around the world.

Prize money is rarely enough to cover all expenses when attending international competitions - the Wisconsin championships paid out $1,000 (£748) to the winners of each category, for example - so Urbanova stayed with a host family in Wisconsin.

Ingbretson and her husband, who also competes, were hosted in the Australian state of Tasmania last winter, while her mother put up Canadian and Australian competitors in Hayward for this year's world championships.

"I think that's something special … you can go somewhere and they'll let you stay and train you and work with you," Ingbretson said. "It's a very welcoming and open community. It's just so fun to be a part of."

She was also bolstered to see women continuing to compete even as their families grow.

"There were three or four mums [log]rolling this year, and so I think it's so cool to see that... they're still being competitive rollers or choppers."

Word of mouth and exposure - particularly through social media - have played integral roles in promoting the sport with women, organisers and competitors say.

"There are a lot of colleges across the US that have timber sports, and they're teaching and getting men and women into the sport of lumberjacking," said Ingbretson, who works as the community education director at Hayward's high school and manages a local fitness centre.

She says she's been treated like a celebrity at school and in town this week and finds it particularly gratifying when she's congratulated by young, up-and-coming competitors in the sport.

"It's just another reason to be active and engaged in the community that we are in, whether it's bringing in new kids or supporting the kids that just started [log] rolling."

Now, she's setting her sights on an all-round title.

"To be efficient in multiple disciplines…is very important, and it's very difficult ... it just takes a level of dedication and commitment to make it happen."

Urbanova, meanwhile, also hopes her success is inspiring and that she keeps up her record-setting streak.

"I'm still growing and still learning, but now the level of the girls is really high, so it's also hard to keep the same rhythm with them because they now want to be better than me," she said.

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