BOULDER, Colo.—Emmit Hoyl remembers attending Nederland Miners’ Days since he was a child.
“I was enthralled watching all the big guys swinging their hammers and drilling these incredible depths,” said Hoyl, 25, of Boulder County. “They were like comic book heroes to me, like Thor.”
Little did he know, a few years later, he’d be a three-time single-jack champion of the world and the Colorado state champion.
Last weekend, he returned to Nederland Miners’ Days to compete at all the events—including single-jack drilling, which he’s won four years running—and to defend his title of best all-around miner.
Single-jack drilling involves a chisel in one hand and a 4-pound hammer in the other, with each contestant competing to drill the deepest hole. Hoyl defended his world champion title this year with a 14-inch hole pounded into a slab of granite in 10 minutes.
In 2006, when Hoyl returned from technology school in England, he was driving through Nederland when he noticed the Miners’ Days event. On a whim, he decided to enter a drilling contest, and he quickly realized his talent.
He dabbled in contests for a couple of years, and then the third year he went to the world championship and placed fourth. He won it the next year and became the youngest world champion.
“It was a quick rise to the top, I guess you can say,” Hoyl said.
He said drilling is not a rookie sport—most of his competition is made up of men in their 40s and 50s.
Hoyl’s job as a blacksmith, constructing products such as gates and fences, gives him an obvious advantage at swinging a hammer, he said. He also does a lot of working out—weightlifting and cardio.
But he credits his success to his tolerance level. Hoyl describes drilling as a brutal sport filled with injuries, and accidentally hammering a hand is inevitable when swinging a hammer 90 times a minute in competitions that can last five to 10 minutes. Also, his arms start to ache as he pounds and grips onto the chisel.
“I have tenacity for blocking out the pain,” Hoyl said. “You have to block out the pain, block out the crowd and just swing. As I say, I just get psychotic on a piece of steel.”
Hoyl—who comes from five generations of miners—says he may have been born with the skill set. His great- great-grandfather was the first trained engineer to come to Colorado during the 1859 Gold Rush, he said.
Boulder has a rich mining history, and the world championship used to be held at Chautauqua Park, he said.
“Considering the fact that where we live was founded on mining, it’s good to know my town’s history,” Hoyl said. “I like to tell other people about it because there’s this culture in Boulder that people are above (mining), but it used to be a mining town.”
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Information from: Daily Camera,
