Eleven-year-old wins German hand-mowing championship

Eleven-year-old Florian Linhart has won the children’s category at Germany’s hand-mowing championship in Neubeuern, BR reports. The boy from Griesstätt in the Rosenheim district has already claimed his first title at the age of seven.

Competitors had to mow a 15-square-metre plot of grass with a scythe while racing against the clock. The grass was particularly dry, Florian said, but he still finished ahead of the other competitors.

Speed is not the only factor in the contest. Judges also assess the quality of the cut. Competitors receive penalty points if stalks are left standing or the cut is uneven. Men mow 100 square metres, while young people and other adults mow 35 square metres. Children’s plots measure 15 square metres.

Florian said the key to winning was “endurance, strength and proper drive”. His father, Alois, has also competed successfully and said he became Bavarian champion for the first time in 1999.

Florian began practising at an early age. A family video shows him holding a scythe at five. His parents initially worried that he might injure himself, but he kept asking for one of his own. His first scythe was a decorative item that his father converted into a small working scythe. He later received another scythe for Christmas.

At the 2022 German championship, Florian was seven and won immediately. He has yet to beat his father in a direct contest, however. Alois is faster than Florian and his younger brother Georg, although Florian once accused him of cheating after finding uncut blades of grass in the freshly mowed lawn.

Hand-mowing was once ordinary agricultural work but is now also practised as a sport, particularly in Bavaria, Austria, South Tyrol, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Switzerland. The European championship is held every two years and will take place in South Tyrol’s Sarntal in 2027.

The German Scythe Association also promotes the technique for environmental reasons, saying that insects and meadow plants benefit when mowing takes place after flowering and without engine noise. For Florian, the main goal remains beating his father’s time.