You may have already seen him at work, wielding the ax and the chainsaw with mad dexterity.
At 35, Pierre Puybaret is the French star of sports logging, this very demanding discipline, which regularly appears on the small screen, where we see big fellows chopping logs of wood at supersonic speed.
The Corrézien based in Isère will be one of the main competitors in the discipline at the World Championships taking place in Gothenburg (Sweden) this Friday.
With him, it cuts dry.
A few seconds are enough for him to make slices of a trunk whose diameter varies between 30 and 46 cm, where ordinary mortals would surely get away with blisters in their hands.
World record holder in the
single-buck
event with his "passe-partout saw" (11.58 seconds last year), six-time French champion, the 30-year-old looking like a third-line rugby player (1, 90 m, 110 kg) trains at home in Bourg-d'Oisans as soon as he has finished his day as a maintenance technician at EDF, after giving a snack to his soon-to-be 2-year-old granddaughter.
🔥NEW WORLD RECORD🔥 Pierre Puybaret from France put in an incredible performance during the Individual World Championship.
In the single buck (without assistance) he saw through the wood in just 11.58 seconds.
pic.twitter.com/EpUNV1BBW3
— STIHL TIMBERSPORTS (@TimbersportsCA) October 13, 2021
“In the spring, when the snow has melted, a truck delivers me about 40 m3 of wood on the platform that the municipality makes available to me, says the Charles Ingalls of modern times.
It allows me to last a large part of the year, at the rate of 15 to 20 poplar logs a day.
I mainly practice the ax and a little master key.
I use the chainsaw much less, the simplest tool and also the most tricky, because it makes a hell of a noise and the platform is located in the middle of town.
In winter, it's ski touring, and a bit of a gym because that's not really my thing!
»
"No one approaches me in the street and that's good"
Originally from Brive, Pierre Puybaret, who already had this younger size, could have embraced a career as a rugby player like many kids in the region: "I tried very late at 20, in the 3rd and 4th series (the lowest level).
It's not that I didn't like it, let's say that at this level where all ages are mixed, it's more about "the cap" (slap) than anything else..." One of his friends then in a forestry high school practices sport logging: “At his house, one weekend, I see him training.
He makes me try and I'm not doing too badly.
I then accompanied him in competition so that he wouldn't do the road alone.
Sometimes, when they lacked competitors, I filled the gap.
I took a liking to it.
»
Gradually, the colossus with iron hands and Olympian calm works on his endurance, his strength, his technique and his precision.
“When you do
Timbersports
(the name for sports logging), you're overwhelmed if you don't train regularly like a goalscorer who chains the ball between the posts.
It's a discipline that has evolved very quickly over the past three or four years, with young people who want it and who are pulling themselves up.
»
No mess, he distributes the wood he cuts in training
Among the hundred or so practitioners in France, some are regularly found in village competitions, as at the birth of this sport at the end of the 19th century in Australia and New Zealand, the current dominant nations.
“The elders don't like being walked past when we're there to have fun.
They think we have a big head but no one in the world makes a living from it, there are no more professionals.
He is paid by a sponsor for these trips.
“People are still nice, we take pictures on small competitions.
Otherwise nobody approaches me in the street and that's good.
It remains a passion and a pleasure.
If it was a constraint or a routine, it would become boring!
The
Timbersports
is a whole.
We hit the limits all year but when we arrive, we find friends and we have a good time.
»
And all the cut wood, what becomes of it?
While the shortage has taken hold everywhere in France, nothing is wasted: "I give it to colleagues and other acquaintances who have alpine chalets, smiles this nature lover who knows the different species by heart.
They come to help themselves and everyone is happy.
There is indeed not the shadow of a wood-burning stove or a fireplace in the family home.
That of Pierre Puybaret is functional and equipped with electric heating.
“That's the advantage of working at EDF,” he concludes.
