Three women's world records fall at the lumberjack championships in Hayward

Three women's world records went down over three days at the Lumberjack World Championships in Hayward, Wisconsin, which ran from July 16 to 18 at the Lumberjack Bowl.

The records

Karolina Urbanova, competing for the Czech Republic, took two of them in the chopping events. She cut through 11 inches of white pine in 21.28 seconds in the underhand chop, then went through 9 inches in the standing chop in 19.38 seconds.

The underhand chop is done standing on the log, swinging down between the feet. The standing block is cut vertically, like felling a tree in miniature. Both are scored on time, and both are as much about where the axe lands as how hard it is swung.

The third record went to Meredith Ingbretson, from Hayward itself, in the boom run: eight floating red cedar logs, out and back, in 13.78 seconds. She has won the event six times. The logs are not fixed. They roll, and the water is right there.

The event

The championships have been held in Hayward since 1960, drawing on the logging history of the north woods, and are staged at a former mill pond. CBS News reported more than 100 competitors this year from 16 states and nine countries.

Women have competed since the beginning, though at first only in log rolling, which is why that discipline still carries a particular status in the sport. The program has since widened to include chopping, sawing, speed climbing and the boom run.

A sport that stayed itself

Timbersports occupies unusual ground. The skills were once occupational, and the competition grew out of loggers settling arguments about who was fastest. The events have not been redesigned for television or made safer to the point of being unrecognizable. A competitor in the underhand chop is still standing on the piece of wood she is swinging an axe into.

That is part of the appeal, and it is also why the records matter to the people who set them. Urbanova traveled from central Europe to a town of a couple thousand people in northern Wisconsin to cut through white pine faster than anyone has. Ingbretson grew up where the event is held.

The championships run again next July.