Lorne Colthart - Canadian Scottish Athletic Federation and Highland Games Heavy Weight Competition Champion
By Andrew MacCulloch
I attended my first Glengarry Highland Games this summer and was particularly intrigued by the heavy weight sporting competition. The clans marched in, and the Games were officially declared open.
Then the lads and lasses got to it. I was a rookie spectator but largely awed. Huge and powerful men and women competed in tests of strength, agility and power. I recognized the Stone Put as a variation of the shot put, and the Hammer Throw too. Then came the Weight for Height which entails throwing a heavy weight over a high bar with one hand. Scots accurately describe their events! Next came the signature event, the Caber (Gaelic for tree) Toss which involves “tossing” a 20ft long, 150 lb. pole after you have balanced and ran with it for a while. Don’t try it in your backyard. Another event was the Highlanders Tug O’ War, where Highland Regiments compete to win the The Tartan Cup. It involves several rounds of competition where two massive teams try to pull each other over a line in the middle between them. I did not realize how large these boys were until I met a few later in the pub. Who knew that I would get the opportunity to interview the eventual Glengarry Games winner Lorne Colthart after the competition. It was a good blether.
Lorne was raised in Blair Atholl, Scotland, of castle fame. His father David and uncle Stephen competed in Highland Games and, after watching as a wee lad, he decided to take it up playing around first and then competing in local events. Unlike in our sometimes overprogrammed sporting world there was no specialized programs or training. I asked how he trained and he said, “I’d do a little training but it was mainly competing in as many games as I could” And compete he did in the competitive junior Scottish loop where he faced tougher competition. He admitted he was exposed to some technical training too. “I had a part-time coach one winter (a fellow competitor and at the time my main opposition, Bruce Robb). We’d also compare notes a little in the games and practicing. Humble as most Scots go, Lorne noted “We’d compete hard, but its not like the Olympics or anything.”
You keep competing in the junior loop until you win it then you have to move to the senior one. He won it at 20 years old and 5 years later, he won the senior loop and had started competing in the world championships. A meteoric rise! Loren always kept it fun; he is also the world record holding Haggis thrower (217 feet!), involving not only strength, but a very subtle technique, and is in the Guinness Book of Records.
I wondered about the secret of his success? “I was lucky enough to have great support growing up from my father (a Perthshire champion) who would take me along to his training sessions and also to the competitions” explained Lorne. Another important factor is genetics; he is 6’4” and weighs in at 285 lbs. A passion for the sport, the fun of competing and the camaraderie of the lads in a small competitive circuit are also critical. He also admits that when he was younger, the prize purse was helpful in improving his social life. Indeed!
He met his now Canadian wife Treena at the only pub in Blair Atholl when she was over one summer working a family run store. She returned to school in Canada, and worked overseas for the UN in Bangladesh. Lorne is a master of understatement, but I imagine it took much of his celebrated tenacity and determination to carry on a long distance relationship and finally marry four years later! They now have two lads, Hugh and Hamish, and have settled in Ottawa. Lorne continues to terrorize the Canadian Highland Games Scottish athletic competition circuit, recently winning the Canadian Scottish Athletic Federation Championship at the Montreal Highland Games, and the men’s heavy weight competition in Glengarry, and won two events, placing fifth overall in the World Championships in California on the Labour Day weekend. He now fits his training and competition in between work and family and wonders whether the boys will follow the family tradition or maybe become hockey players?
To learn more about the history of Highland Games and the origins of the Scottish athletic competitions, visit the Canadian Scottish Athletic Federation History of the Games webpage.
It is refreshing to watch the Highland Games and see the competition and camaraderie. The joy of sport is evident rather than the sometimes, all encompassing youth and professional sports I have experienced in Canadian hockey. That’s for some but not all. Lorne and the Highland Games reminds us that there is another way. So I invited him out to the Great Canadian Kilt Skate and other Scottish Society of Ottawa events over this year’s OttScot Festival. I am sure he will relate to kilt-skating and pond hockey as a not-so-different tradition from growing up just playing back in Scotland. But maybe, a little colder, especially in a kilt.