COUNTY Durham Young Farmers’ ladies tug of war team are celebrating having pulled off a hat-trick – taking top spot in their third consecutive national competition.
The winning squad, which included two local YFC members – Rachel Dent and Zoe Hutchinson – travelled to Worcestershire for the National Federation of Young Farmers’ Clubs’ competition, held at Tenbury Show, where they out performed their rivals, Somerset, taking an average of just 40 seconds to pull them over the line.
Ms Dent, 20 from Middleton-in-Teesdale, a member of Staindrop YFC, said: “It is the second time for me being on the winning side, but it’s the third consecutive time County Durham YFC have won.
“It’s all quite an achievement and it was great on the day as we had a lot of supporters cheering us on from the side lines.”
The nine-strong squad – eight ladies on the rope and one substitute – began training for the contest in May with up to two, two-hour sessions a week.
As well as wearing specialist shoes for the event the team had to be weighed-in before taking to the field.
She added: “Collectively the team had to be under 560 kilogrammes.
“On the morning when we got weighed in, we were spot on. If you aren’t you can’t go on and have to look at taking jumpers off to shave off weight.”
The County Durham full squad – Jessica Stewart, Molly Raine, Sarah Parsons, Zoe Alderslade, Holly Griffiths, Hannah Maddison, Rachel Dent, Zoe Hutchinson and Becky Dobson – were supported by coach Alan Maddison and his daughter Katie, who competed in 2022.
To get to the final the Durham ladies had to be eligible to compete squad members had to be aged between 17 and 28, and a young farmers’ club member.
She added: “There were two leagues and we were in league two.
“The top two teams went into a cross-over and then the two winners of the cross-over went into the final and that’s how we got there.
“There were some difficult pulls but we won every one we did and we were averaging 40 seconds per pull.”
