Lambasted Cam sets shearing record

World champion shearer Cam Ferguson yesterday logged another magic moment in 15 months of triumph by setting a new world shearing record in the heat of a King Country woolshed.
The 27-year-old from Waipawa set an eight-hour lambshearing record of 742, after a horror start including a power cut in the first 20 minutes, and three lambs being rejected by the judges in the first hour and a half.
After the power cut set him back by an hour, Ferguson set the record inside the last five minutes before the rescheduled finish time of 6pm.
On hand to congratulate him was New Zealand-based Irish shearer Ivan Scott who set the previous mark of 736 in December 2008.
Ferguson's record came at Moketenui Station between Te Kuiti and Benneydale, four years to the day after fellow Hawke's Bay shearer Dion King, in the same shed, set a nine-hour record of 866, which Scott will be challenging on Friday at Opepe Trust, east of Taupo.
Ferguson, watched by partner Teresa Hall, daughter Kaylah, nan Hine Aramoana, dad Brian, mother Marion and other whanau from Hawke's Bay, added the record to a string of other successes since the start of the 2009-2010 season.
With only three wins in five seasons of open-class competition since winning the Golden Shears senior title in 2004, he won the New Zealand Spring Championship in October 2009, and a number of other titles climaxing in the Golden Shears open title last March and the world title in Wales in July.
The efforts won him the Central Hawke's Bay and Ngati Kahungunu supreme sports awards, and a nomination for the Halberg Awards.
On Friday he heads to Southland for two competitions, including shearing for New Zealand in a test against the UK with teammate, shearing icon and record bid manager David Fagan, the pair also being guests of honour at the Winton A and P Show.
The most significant loss may have been the 4kg he sweated from his frame today, from an effort which impressed chief judge Tony Abbey, from Badgingarra, West Australia.
"He's done it hard, and it's been a good effort," said Mr Abbey, one of four judges appointed by the World Sheep Shearing Records Society.
"It was a very trying start, he had to overcome that obstacle, and he did well to get quickly back into gear. It was a good effort to rise above it."
His 67-year-old nan Hine Aramoana wept as her moko turned off the machine for the last time.
"I'm so proud," she said. "I've only been able to watch him twice - and the other time was at the pub in Waipawa."
The shearer was speechless, having to wait several minutes while someone went to fetch some water, before someone else intervened with a beer.
"I'm buggered," he said, but was quick to thank all of his supporters. As well as Fagan, the team included at least five other record holders, including Stacey Te Huia, from Te Kuiti, Ingrid Baynes, from Wairoa, and Rodney Sutton, from Porangahau, all holders of records set in the same shed.
Ferguson recalled the moment the power went off midway through his 28th lamb, which went back into the pen while everyone waited anxiously for power to return, initially limited and from a generator.
"Some people might have thought it made it easier with another break," he said.
"No. I had to psych up and get going again."