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Birchfield goes pro in Scottish games

Thursday, April 20, 2006

Click here to enlarge this photo Tom Fedor⁄The Gazette James Birchfield, 32, of Eldersburg eyes his target before launching the hammer during practice in Freedom Park for the Scottish Heavy Athletics Competition.

Unlike others fielding ground balls and getting in some batting practice, Birchfield’s sport causes a scene.

The sight of the 280-pound, 32-year-old wielding a long metal rod with a lethal-looking weight at the end is enough to cause most passersby to stop and stare.

Add a video camera behind spray-painted lines on a flat grassy area, and the setup is complete — a Scottish Heavy Athlete’s dream.

‘‘I love this sport,” he said, getting ready to throw the hammer.

The Scottish Games include a heptathlon of events rooted in European tradition, according to the Mid-Atlantic Scottish Athletics Web site. The Open⁄Braemar Stones event is similar to the modern-day shot put. In the Heavy Athletics competitions, the open stone weighs 16 pounds, and is thrown with an approach that resembles the shot-put. The Braemar Stone is heavier and weighs between 19 and 28 pounds, and is the most ancient form of this event. Athletes throw the stone from a stationary position behind a toe board called a trig.

In the hammer competition, a long rod with a spiked ball on the end is thrown. Each athlete gets two tries, once with a 16-pound hammer, which is the same as the modern Olympic hammer, and another with a 22-pound hammer. Athletes generally attach a 3- to 6-inch spike on the sole of a pair of boots for this event so that they can dig their feet into the ground to provide greater stability and exert more force on the hammer.

The Caber Toss, Gaelic for ‘‘tree,” involves the athlete flipping the trunk of a tree, which is generally 18 to 21 feet in length weighing between 90 and 150 pounds. The athlete begins by ‘‘picking” the caber, the act of leaning down and popping the caber up into their hands, run with the caber and then attempt to flip it so that it lands perfectly straight in front of them, perpendicular to the ground.

In the Sheaf Toss, the athlete uses a two- or three-tined pitchfork to throw a 16- or 20-pound burlap sack over a bar. The athlete gets three chances at each height and is eliminated after missing all three chances at any given height.

The Weight for Height, or Weight Over Bar is contested with either a 56-, 42-, or 28-pound weight depending on the age and gender of the competitor. The objective is to get the weight over a bar for height. Like the Sheaf, each competitor is given three chances at each height until he or she misses three consecutive times and then they are eliminated.

In Weights for Distance, two weights, a 56-pound and a 28-pound, are thrown from behind a trig that the athlete cannot step over. The athlete throws them from within a box that is 9 feet long and 4 feet wide.

Birchfield, who competes in all of these, is ranked sixth amateur Highland Games Athlete in the United States. Getting into the sport made sense for him because of his participation in similar sports.

After years of participating in and coaching track and field, Birchfield, a software engineer by day, decided to give the sport a try. Now, three years of competing at the amateur level and becoming the 2005 Canadian Amateur Champion, Birchfield is entering his fourth year as a pro.

According to the Mid-Atlantic Scottish Athletics Web site, it is the thrower’s decision to advance to the pro class. The decision is made based on performance and whether the athlete thinks they could be invited to pro game competitions.

Birchfield’s transition to the pro games will become official May 13 at the Frederick Celtic Festival.

‘‘I’ve gone all over the place,” he said. ‘‘Canada, South Carolina, Texas.”

In preparation for the festivals, Birchfield, called ‘‘Birch” in his sport, comes to the park two or three times each week to practice. Hurdling weights nearly 100 feet that would make most cringe to lift, Birchfield couldn’t be happier. And with wife Sue Ann at his side, the duo works out the kinks in his throws.

‘‘I write down his numbers and watch for things,” she said, perched in a lawn chair safely behind her husband. ‘‘We’ll do this for two hours or so.”

Birchfield maintains a blog to track his progress. On April 13, he wrote: ‘‘Walking squats started with a clean, then press to behind the neck. I would do five squats, walk forward 10 steps, turn and repeat. Did this for a total of 6 trips and 30 squats. Gets ya breathing!”

While in the off-season, Birchfield lifts weights to train, spring allows for outdoor practice of the actual events. The video camera allows Birchfield to tweak his throws.

‘‘He likes to watch his footwork, figure out what he needs to change and he puts them side by side and watches other people’s styles,” said Sue Ann. ‘‘He compares different parts of the spin.”

Birchfield faired well in his first games of the season held at the end of March in Sumter, S.C. According to his blog, he threw the open stone 43 feet, the heavy weight 34 feet, the light weight 70 feet, and the sheaf 30 feet among other accomplishments.

He’s gearing up for the May 13 games, the start of the pro season.

While the sport is not as popular with children, the Birchfields hope to get their two daughters, Raine, 11, and Kaley, 7, interested in the sport. He will give a demonstration for the first grade at Eldersburg Elementary School’s Heritage Night scheduled for April 27.

Though rare, women are allowed to participate in the competitions.

‘‘I saw a 13-year-old once and she was pretty good,” Birchfield said, adding that there are not many women among the thousands of men who compete. ‘‘She had the build for it. A lot of them do it because their dads do it.”

When practicing in Freedom Park, Birchfield is careful to throw away from the parking lot, joking that his car was ‘‘three cars over” last week. He said he doesn’t mind when people stop and watch him practice.

‘‘The more people I can get interested in the sport, the better,” he said. ‘‘It’s just the greatest. I love it.”