Ploughman heading to Ireland champs without his trusty blue Ford

• Published date: 08 June 2022
• Publication title: Central Rural Life

He is OK with that

History is littered with cases where war or politics gets in the way of sport, and ploughing is no exception.

The 67th World Ploughing Contest was due to be staged in St Petersburg, Russia.

This was called off, the World Ploughing Organisation’s governing board saying the attack on Ukraine was ‘‘atrocious conduct’’, a clear violation and breach of international law and in contradiction to its slogan: Let peace cultivate the soil.

Fortunately, Ireland stepped in at the last minute after Russia was stripped of the hosting rights and the contest will be held in Ratheniska, County Laois, starting on September 21.

From a purely competitive perspective, the champion Timaru ploughman is saddened by the lost opportunity, but when one door closes, another opens.

Mr Mehrtens couldn’t be happier that he will return to Ireland for a third time to chase the elusive world reversible ploughing title and rekindle friendships.

‘‘The Irish are very passionate plough people. When you go to the world ploughing in Ireland there will be 300,000 people there — it’s huge. I’ve been pretty fortunate that I’ve ploughed in Ireland the last two times in 1996 and 2006 and it’s just a sea of people.’’

He admits he didn’t plough well by his own standards at either event, so hopefully it will be a case of third time lucky.

Only three Kiwis have won the world conventional title, with the reversible yet to be claimed.

Mr Mehrtens has come closest, placing second in Kenya in 2017, and the ambition to one day top the podium remains strong.

‘‘It’s there for everybody and the best man will win on the day. That’s the way it goes. To be honest, in Kenya I knew I did pretty good the first day, but didn’t think it would be that good ... I was sitting at the prizegiving like everybody else because no-one knew the second-day points, which are added together to find the winner. They’re rattling off all these places and the Frenchman got third and I wasn’t expecting anything, so when they called out second for New Zealand I thought ... that’s me. I was quite shocked and it was a real buzz.’’

The 60-something ploughman has contested about 13 world championships since going to the Netherlands in 1989 with several top-10 performances. On the domestic front, he has made about 45 national finals.

He started off in conventional ploughing until rule changes for the world event insisted that each country had to send a reversible and conventional ploughman.

‘‘Seeing I’d been away a few...