Local businessmen bring new sports to the Arnold

Axes and Racquets: When it returns each year, the Arnold Sports Festival brings new additions to its line-up, and the 30th anniversary festival is no exception

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When it returns each year, the Arnold Sports Festival brings new additions to its line-up, and the 30th anniversary festival is no exception.

The 2018 festival, slated for March 1-4, will be adding seven new events, some more unconventional than others.

Axe Throwing

March 3-4

Coordinated by Marty Parker, founder of Columbus Axe Throwing, this two-day competition will feature approximately 80 people, mostly from the U.S. and Canada, on day one.

On day two, the top 16 compete in a single-elimination tournament for the Arnold Classic Axe Throwing Belt.

“It’s exciting. I mean, the crowd goes crazy when you hit a bullseye,” Parker says. “It is as exciting as any other sport you can imagine.”

Parker says that, over the last few years, the axe-throwing industry has rapidly grown in America. At Columbus Axe Throwing, raucous crowd participation is encouraged, and participants are invited to give themselves goofy lumberjack names.

During the Arnold, Parker and his company will offer free throws to visitors ages 18 and up. He wants festivalgoers to realize how safe, yet exhilarating, the sport is, and also prove that physical size does not account for accuracy.

“It truly is a sport that, once you make adjustments and you adapt, no matter who you are, you can be good at it,” he says. “I really love to see people extremely, extremely excited and extremely happy … and axe throwing does that.”

Pickleball

March 4

A combination of badminton, tennis and table tennis, pickleball is being brought to the Arnold 2018 by Columbus resident Gerry Bennett, co-founder of Pickleball Promotions USA.

Pickleball is a paddle sport played on a badminton court with a modified tennis-style net and a lightweight plastic ball similar to a Wiffle ball.

The one-day competition will have about 120 players spread out among 12 courts in multiple divisions.

Bennett started playing about two years ago – after retiring from his motorcycle racing hobby – when his wife, Tammy, discovered the sport at their local gym. Bennett said he likes not only the social aspect, but the fact that the sport is within reach for people of any age.

“You can have three generations of people all playing the sport, and all are playing it well,” he says. “It’s just phenomenal from that aspect.”

 The Arnold competition will also have an exhibition match featuring Dave Seckel, Will Wilson, Mila Syra-Santos and Holley Rea, some of the best pickleball players in the area.

“This Arnold will be (Pickleball Promotions USA)’s first major tournament,” Parker says. “So we’re looking forward to it.”

New at the Arnold 2018

  • Axe throwing
  • Pickleball
  • Body painting
  • Equestrian
  • eSports (competitive gaming)
  • Classic physique (professional and amateur)

Goofy Lumberjack Names: A Sampling

  • Paul Funyan
  • Annie Oak-ley
  • Spruce Springsteen
  • Samuel L. Axeson
  • Woodchuck Norris
  • The Axe-Street Boys

Lydia Freudenberg is a contributing editor. Feedback welcome at gbishop@cityscenemediagroup.com.

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