Blenheim’s Lydia Hill overcame a bumper field of 17 expert excavator operators to win the Civil Contractors New Zealand CablePrice Nelson Marlborough Regional Excavator Operator Competition on Saturday.
The competition was held at the Richmond Park Showgrounds during the Nelson A&P show, attracting hundreds of eager spectators who came to see the region’s best operators rumble out in their 13-tonne excavators to test their skills on the competition course.
“We had a good number of competitors and the talent was exceptional – Lydia just scraped into top spot by the skin of her excavator bucket’s teeth,” said CCNZ Nelson Marlborough Branch Chair Luke Donaldson.
Operators were put through a series of crowd pleasing and often quirky challenges, ranging from dunking a basketball and opening a beer using their excavators, though to ‘heavy metal mini golf’ – requiring them to putt a ball into a hole using their excavator buckets.
Other more conventional tests of operator skill were also included, such as lifting a manhole lid precisely into position, along with tests of health and safety awareness and knowledge.
First place finisher Hill was taking part in the Nelson Marlborough competition for the first time but has previously competed in the Northland region competition in 2018.
“I was a bit more of a newbie back then so didn’t really know what to expect, but I was still pretty nervous at the start of today.”
She said the competition tasks were “more finicky” than her day job building the Whale Trail from Picton to Kaikōura with local company Elite Excavations Marlborough, but some of the skills she used at work had come in handy for the more technical challenges.
“Sometimes I am bit lazy,” she laughed, “so instead of getting out of my excavator to pick up a twig I notice while working on the trail, I’ll carefully pick it up and move it out of the way with my machine.”
Hill has been operating excavators for more than a decade, having started on a dairy farm at just 14 years of age, while still in school. Her victory in the Nelson Marlborough excavator earnt her a spot in the national finals in Feilding next year, where she will take part in a winner-takes-all showdown against 12 other champion operators from across New Zealand.
Hill is the third woman to qualify for this year's national finals, alongside Canterbury Westland champion Georgia Lyford and Tanya Claxton, who was announced as the Hawke's Bay East Coast regional competition winner at an awards event on Friday night.
Donaldson said the CCNZ CablePrice Nelson Marlborough Regional Excavator Operator Competition had been running since the 1990s and had become a feature of the region’s civil construction calendar.
He said Saturday’s event was the first to include a ‘fun class’, allowing people who don’t usually operate excavators to compete against each other on a simplified course for bragging rights. A separate mini-dig experience was also on site, giving children the chance to try their hand at excavator operation.
“Raising awareness of excavator operating and civil construction as a career choice is a big part of why we run the competition, so seeing all the young kids totally engrossed and mesmerised by the diggers was very cool,” Donaldson said.
Sponsors this year included CablePrice, Attach2 Equipment, Humes, Firstgas, Hirepool, Connexis, Construction Training & Assessments, Milwaukee Tool, Taylors Contracting, Nelson Forktrucks Ltd and Nelmac.
Check out the full photo set on the CCNZ CablePrice Excavator Operator Competitions Facebook page>>
Winners
CCNZ CablePrice Nelson Marlborough Regional Excavator Operator Competition
- First: Lydia Hill, Elite Earthworks Marlborough
- Second: Daniel Bruning, Diggs Ltd
- Third: Andrew Hattaway, Taylors Contracting
Fun Class winner
- Robbie Swarbrick, Taylors Contracting
Company winner
Competition winners (L-R) Andrew Hattaway (3rd), Lydia Hill (1st), Daniel Bruning (2nd) and Charlie Taylor from Taylors Contracting.
Children enjoyed the mini dig experience held during the competition.