Traditional shearing competitions season-opener the New Zealand Merino Shears has been cancelled this year as organisers work to mark its 60th anniversary, post-Covid, in style in 2021.
The championships in Alexandra, which would have attracted 100-plus shearers and woolhandlers to the only fine wool competition on the Shearing Sports New Zealand calendar, were to have been held on October 2-3.
The cancellation has also led to the cancellation of the 2020-21 national shearing circuit.
It also affects the annual home-and-away transtasman series, with the two competitions providing two of the three shearers in the New Zealand team each summer.
Incorporating a final for the McSkimming Memorial Triple Crown at the Golden Shears each March since 1973, the circuit had already been hit by the cancellation of this year’s New Zealand Agricultural Show (the Canterbury Show) which would have staged third-round event the New Zealand Corriedale Championships.
New Zealand Merino Shearing Society chairman Greg Stuart said the cancellation was due to the
Covid-19 crisis producing severe impacts across the country and the world. He said his committee “needed to make the call” about an event which ran on a budget of up to $50,000 — at a time when the lockdown made negotiations almost impossible.
The committee did not wish to “embarrass” or pressure anyone and decided it wanted to guarantee still being around for the 60th year, particularly for the sake of those who had supported the event over the years, he said.
