“I’ve been lucky enough to see all the greats chop and Laurence O’Toole is the hardest hitter of them all.”
Third generation axeman, Laurence jnr is grandson of Legend Jack O’Toole and son and nephew of champions Laurence snr and Martin. He won his first Royal Easter Show World Title at 22 years of age in 2003, five years after his father won his last in 1998.
Laurence is one of those very rare people…a professional international axeman. He was in the Australian junior team from 1998-2002, has been in the Australian team since 2004 and is currently (2020) captain. He has won multiple “Champion of Champion” awards in Sydney, holding the underhand and standing block hard hitting records. His “Golden Axe” awards in Melbourne include an 18-year winning streak there in the underhand. His skills cover all disciplines – he is one of the few axemen to have won Royal championships in all of these. He has been Australian Axeman of
the Year eight times so far.
Laurence is also a long-standing member of Australian Chopperoos (Stihl Timbersports™), a team that he has captained from 2014. He was crowned Stihl Individual World Champion in 2018. In the “showman” tradition of many axemen before him, Laurence has raised the sport’s profile in the media. In the Basque Country in Spain he is a star, and he has chopped as “The Chisel” on US Cable TV.
He provided the background sound for the stage version of The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith. On TV’s Australia’s Got Talent 2008, Dannii Minogue pronounced: “If all the woodchoppers look like Laurence, I’m here to lead the charge to make sure this uniquely Australian skill stays alive and thrives.”
(from Chris Beck, “Making the Cut”, The Age, 11 August 2008)i
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