FERGUS – World-class athletes will be coming to Fergus this summer.
To celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Fergus Scottish Festival and Highland Games (FSF), the Scottish Highland Games Heavy Event World Championships will be taking place throughout the festival weekend.
The idea came from Scottish festival athletic director Warren Trask with the help of co-organizer Christoph Wand.
In 2020 the Fergus Scottish Festival and Highland Games will take place Aug. 7 to 9.
“There will be an aggregate scored competition of recognized champions and elite men featuring eight disciplines of the Scottish heavy events: two stone putting events, two weight throws (28 and the 56 pounds) for distance, two hammers (heavy and the light), the 56 weight thrown for height, and the caber,” Wand said in an email.
“There will also be the typical ‘Unturnable’ Challenge Caber which now has a several thousand dollar bounty on it. This will be contested under an anti-doping protocol.”
The world championships will bring 12 of the top athletes from the highland games world to Fergus, including competitors from Canada, the United States, Scotland and the European Union.
“Some have been at Fergus in recent years … but this will be a notch higher,” Wand said.
To accommodate the Braemar (standing stone put) event with 12 athletes, two events will be taking place on Friday night, with the remainder of the events taking place on Saturday.
“The FSF board and Tattoo committee will be deliberating how to synch those in,” Wand explained.
“Because there are extra demands on athlete travel, dignitaries, etc., we will need to work volunteer recruiting and sponsorship a wee bit harder.”
The 2020 festival will mark the third time the Fergus festival has hosted the world championships; the local festival also hosted in 2005 and 2012.
