A MALVERN athlete will join the best wood choppers from around the globe to represent Britain in the Timbersports World Championships next month.
Rob Chatley, 39, who lives in Tenbury Wells will join five other British athletes at the tournament in Stuttgart, Germany competing alongside more than 100 others in the extreme wood chopping sport.
He is the current second best ranked British axeman and is a former British champion, winning the title back in 2014. He moved to Malvern in 2011, from Brockenhurst in the New Forest, after meeting his wife Natalie.
By day, Rob – a father of one – is a water treatment engineer and by night he’s swinging axe’s and competing against some of the toughest global wood chopping elites of Australia, New Zealand, USA, Canada, and more.
He told the Observer: “My dad was one of the best in his day, he competed in the 70’s and I’d watch him around the country. That’s where the ambition came from.
“Your first win gives you that extra buzz and the desire to succeed.
“It’s exhilarating when you get up on stage with the cameras and the lights, it’s a different world up there.
“It’s all about the bragging rights.”
At the competition, hosted at the Porsche Arena, four athletes from each nation will take part in a relay that comprises of four events, with points awarded according to the time it takes to complete the discipline.
Led by team captain and British Pro Champion, Glen Penlington, the British team are aiming to improve on last year’s seventh placed finish when they compete next weekend (November 4-5).
The rest of Team GB is made up of Graham Turner, the first ever Scotsman to make the British Championship podium last year, Dorset’s Tom Redmond, 2023’s third ranked Brit, Jack Morris the British Rookie Champion, and Hereford’s George Spencer, Team GB’s youngest at 27.
Rob added: “As a team we’re confident to get top three in Europe, first would be amazing.
“All six of us are good mates, we’re all in high spirits for what we can achieve and it’s a good atmosphere with all of the other competitors around the world.”
