ĽUBOMÍR Košút from the village of Klin, in the Orava region, has won the 15th annual scything championship at Pohorelá. Košút slashed his way through his fifty square metre patch in one minute and 31 seconds to become the champion grass-cutter in all of Slovakia for the third time in a row.
Five other competitions took place on the Pohorelá plains on July 11. The best under-18 cutter was Ján Kánoš of Pohorelá. Ľudmila Šeligová of Hruštín won the women’s competition. Paradoxically the fathers and sons competition was won by a father and daughter, Ľubomír Kostič and his daughter Jana.
The over-60s category was won by Michal Šulič from the Czech city of Ostrava. And the winners of the team event were five young men from the Šariš region.
Lukáš Janoška, one of the organisers, explained to the TASR newswire why the last round of the Slovak Scything Cup and the Horehronie Grass-cutters’ and Raking Women’s festivities took place on the meadows near Pohorelá: “Thus, we commemorate the sad history of the Horehronie region,” said Janoška, “as it has diminished in population and the land has become overrun with weeds.”
Janoška has won the world scything championship seven times. He was among 90 contestants vying for this year’s Pohorelá title. Several hundred people attended this year's event.
3. Aug 2009 at 0:00 | Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
