Chainsaw Wood Carving World Championship in Lithuania

The International Championship of Wood Carvers with Chainsaws, after a break of several years, was held for the fourth time March 29 - April 1 in Kaunas. Carvers from 12 countries participated: USA, Canada, Chile, Japan, Mongolia, Holland, Romania, Slovenia, Ukraine, Poland, Estonia and, of course, Lithuania. About 100,000 people attended.

Artwork created during each day's rapid-fire competition were auctioned off. The likes of the audience influenced who became the winner of the Championship, organized by VšĮ "Steel beavers" who organize wood carving events and competitions in various cities and areas of Lithuania to popularize national and ethnographic traditions of wood carving, to foster love for the forest and wood, to decorate public and private territories with wood art works, and to popularize a relatively new direction of art and sport in Lithuania: wood carving with chain saws.

The winner: Japanese Takao Hayashi

Second place: Romanian Ioan Ungur

Third place: Lithuanian Gintautas Tručinskas

"Simpsonai" by Gintautas Tručinskas https://www.instagram.com/gintautastrucinskas/

My first cousin and accomplished folk art chainsaw wood carver, Vidmantas Kapačiūnas and his wife Regina Kapačiūnienė, who took the photos of the three winners, attended the competition as spectators. You can examples of his work at the bottom of this page: http://www.lithuanianmaps.com/WebmasterInfo.html and see a recent award ceremony at https://www.kaisiadorieciams.lt/tag/vidmantas-kapaciunas/ and more sculptures at my May 2021 post at this blog: https://www.lithuanianjournal.org/post/vid-kapa%C4%8Di%C5%ABnas-latest-sculptures

April 2018, Vidmantas Kapačiūnas