Snowmass – Around the Celtic circuit, they are known variously as the Highland Games, the Scottish Games and even, on occasion, the whiskey games. But to most of the competitors at the first annual Snowmass Village Scottish Games held over the weekend, the contests were known by their more pedestrian name: throwin’.
Unlike pitching a baseball, however, the “heavy games” – as Rocky Mountain Scottish Athletes field judge Wayne Staggs explained is the accurate title – have very little to do with accuracy. And the only element that might be confused with finesse is the requirement that competitors all wear kilts (sometimes confused with skirts).
“I got into it after a bet from my girlfriend’s mom that I wouldn’t wear a kilt,” said Tom Coney of Lakewood. “Next thing I knew I was wearing a skirt and throwing big, heavy things around.”
The heavy things that Coney and the dozen or so amateur competitors at Snowmass grappled with during the competition made up five of the seven traditional events in heavy games competition. Among them (in preferred order) are the stone put (precursor to the shot put), the heavy weight for distance (a 56-pound weight toss), the light weight for distance (28 pounds), the hammer throw (originally a sledge hammer), the caber toss (think “telephone pole throwing”), the sheaf toss (20-pound burlap sacks thrown over a high bar with a pitchfork) and the weight for height (the heavy weight thrown over your head and a high bar).
As tests of strength go, this stuff makes arm-wrestling look like a sissy sport.
“I enjoy the weight-lifting aspect of it, so I thought I’d give it a try,” said Roger Brown, a burly workout junkie from Glenwood Springs who won several events in his first amateur competition Saturday. “It takes more technique and endurance than I expected. With these multiple-attempt events, you really feel it after a while.”
Brown, like many of the competitors, plans to continue competing in these challenging strength trials traced back to Scottish clans of the 1100s. The attraction stems as much from the challenge as it does to the roots of the events, some of which (such as the hammer toss) were used in preparation for battle before the advent of modern weapons.
“We’re not real sure where some of these events came from. It’s pretty vague,” said Staggs, a nine-year competitor from Arvada. “But it essentially goes back to competition between the clans in Scotland – big, strong guys having fun.”
Scott Willoughby can be reached at 303-820-1993 or swilloughby@denverpost.com.
Learn more — For more info: www.RMSA.org.
