After looking at the last photo I'll talk about little point again, how do the Basques cut the logs. Two types of axes are used when you cut a log, one for the outside a second one for the inside. It can be not important in other types of sports were you cut one soft small log, but the Basque sport continues with the spirit of its origin and they cut types of woods and logs closer to what an axeman would find in his everyday work.
This approach makes them using two axes to cut a log. When you start cutting a log a big and potent axe is preferable in order to swing it from the top and cut deep in the wood.
But when you reach the inner zone of the wood the play changes, the wood changes. It's not as easy to cut deep and the chips are smaller. There is not much difference between a full heavy blow and an smaller one. In order to tire less and work faster axemen change the axe.
This is a video of another exibition but here you can see the difference between both axes. The first axeman uses abig outsider axe to start the cut, he swings it from high, but while he goes deep into the log his swings start being shorter and faster. In my opinion he has gone a bit too deep, they had to change faster. When the second axeman starts he uses a smaller an faster axe ending his job faster.
You will see few times they don't change the axe, but they are rare ocassions were competition times are close, they read the wood and calculate they will tire but the few seconds they earn not changing the axe worth it.
Before the competition they raffled the woods each axeman had to cut. Txikon bring the woods and he did a good job, the axes bite deep and the chips flied easily. Good for him, Mikel is a good axeman, harder of difficult wood would benefit to Txikon's adversary. But Txikon had bad luck, do you see it?
Knots.
I counted three for Txikon but only one for Mikel, bad luck. A knot is allways a bad new for an axeman, but when the wood is easy is when a knot is worse. With easy wood cutting times are lower so any circumstance which makes you lose time is a bad thing. Another bad aspect of knots in easy wood is the high choices to break the axe. You use thin axes in that material, when I say thin axes is really thin. 14 degrees is common, some use even 13 degrees, to see it in prespective take your knives and take a look. These axes are thinner than most of them.
When you find knots in these circumstances you have three options, the best one is to change the axe, but you lose time. Second one is to adapt your cut to the knot, you lose time again. Third option is to continue cutting at full blow. This can be the fastest option but also the slowest one, the axe can break and this will make you lose even more time.
When Mikel cut his fourth log Txikon still was to 12 seconds to cut his third log. Txikon was doing good work but Mikel too, he was taking the so much advantage needed for the running part. Txikon in his will to endure left one log not completelly cut. Some fibers still hold that log in one piece, they didn't notice it but the public did so the bullring started shouting him. Here you can see Mikel cutting his sixth log and at 00:32 one judge saying to one Txikon helper the log was not cut porperly.
No problem he cut it in a pair of swings whe he ended another log, but this mada him losing some precious seconds. If you look at how Mikel walks at the end of the video you can also notice how tired was Mikel. They were lucky, all the past week there was a suffocating heat but this was a fresh day and the rain stopped when the challenge started. But hard work is allways hard work and they were feeling this.
Mikel took two logs advantage when he cut his ninth log, he was in forward position from now but he had less advantage than he though.
When Mikel ended cutting his logs he changed his shoes again.
They messed a bit and lose time, nevertheles when Txikon ended cutting his logs Mikel had already done 5 laps (500 meters) to the bullring.
At this moment Txikon didn't take any resting time other that the strict timetable he had in the stonelifting, he neither drink or eat anything. When he ended his last log he started running directly, no rest, no drinking nor eating and no time losed changing his shoes. He impressed all of us, Mikel took a rithm and endured, but Txikon... Txikon started running very fast, what a beast...
There is still very interesting information about this bet, I'll continue later
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