Entries for other events had to be closed off because of the Level 2 limit on public attendance and also so that it was known how many sheep would need to be prepared.
Among the entries is Tony Dobbs, of Fairlie who has had 30 wins at Waimate.
Dodds had been contemplating retirement amid a "flabbergasting" standing ovation at Waimate 12 months ago, where he became the first, and possibly last, blade shearer to notch up 100 wins.
He first competed at Waimate in 1979, where blade shearing has been a feature every year since the Shears were first held in 1968.
He shore one more competition a few weeks later, being beaten by just 0.09pts, by New Zealand teammate and 2019 World champion Allan Oldfield, of Geraldine, in the Canterbury Shears' Golden Blades final.
Dodds shore just once more in the woolshed about Christmas last year.
He achieved this during a battle for his health, which included more than one stint in hospital and ended 30 years of farming, as well as keeping on with a bit of farm maintenance and some digger-driving.
Dodds accepted the challenge to compete at Waimate because he would already be there as a judge.
To prepare, he shore six merinos for a neighbour on Monday.
"That's my practice," he said.
Oldfield, who won the world teams title in 2019 with Dodds, will be missing from this year's competition.
He moved to the North Island in June, becoming possibly the only blades shearer based in the Wellington area in more than a century.
He's living in Lower Hutt and keeps in trim travelling over the Remutaka Hill for machine shearing with Wairarapa contractors Paerata and Cushla Abraham when needed, but is also now targeting the small lifestyle block numbers on the rural fringes of the Wellington area – some of it with the novelty of doing it with the clippers.
"Machine shearing is plenty of fitness and really just shearing a couple on the blades each day on a show style is better than commercial blade shearing as competition practice," he said.
"Most farmers don't have an issue with me blade shearing a few for practice," he said.
As for the lifestyle block shearing he said: "Normally it's easier to blade shear than run power out to the yards."
Oldfield still had an eye on defending the world title in Scotland in 2023 and said he couldn't justify travelling to the shows on the blades circuit, which are all in the South Island.
Instead, he plans to defend the Golden Blades title next month, and take in some competitions in the south in the new year.
Oldfield was concerned blade shearing may lose some shows but wasn't sure how to save them.
"I think we are more likely to get more competition shearers out of hobby blade shearers than commercial in the future, especially as the amount of commercial blade shearing decreases.
"I don't know how much we can do otherwise to get shearers to compete."
Another reversing a decision to not compete this year is Noel Handley, of Rangiora, who shore in the world championships finals in 1996, 1998 and 2000, and who has only missed shearing at Waimate twice since 1980.
"I don't know if I'm doing the right thing," he said after his late decision.
The Waimate Shears is the second show of the new Shearing Sports New Zealand, following the New Zealand Merino Shears in Alexandra last Friday and Saturday.
The Merino Shears did not include blade shearing.
As well as being competitor-only, other Level 2 conditions will be in place at the Waimate Shears, including contact tracing, hand-sanitising, mask-wearing and social distancing.
It will be an early start on Friday with the national Winter Comb senior and open heats, from 7am (check-in at 6.30am), followed by open, senior and junior woolhandling heats, all on Merino sheep, finals, and the finals of the South Island woolhandling circuits.
A speed shear and woolhandlers Quick Throw will be held from 6.30pm on Friday, and the Spring Shears shearing championships on crossbred longwool will be held on Saturday, starting with novice check-in and heats from 7.30am, followed by junior, intermediate, senior and open heats and the Blades events.
