World champion axe thrower is ‘badass’ pole dancer ‘who throws better than most men’

A pole-dancing axe-throwing Northern Irish woman has taken home the World Axe-Throwing World Championship trophy as she states women can throw just as good as most men.

Ceola McGowan, from County Sligo, won the World Double Bit Axe Throwing after beating off (not with the axe) woman from around the world during the three-day competition starting on Friday (August 26 to August August 29).

The competition took place in Nova Scotia, Canada.

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The 31-year-old, who is also a pole dancer and trained with the Wicklow Axe Throwers group, told BBC News NI: “The axe-throwing community is like a community of people that you’re just you’re never going to meet in any other kind of form of sport.

“We have a saying, we have the ‘axe fam’, our axe family.

“The nationals, the internationals, we all used this term and we all love each other dearly.”

She actually credits her pole-dancing hobby as something that enabled her to excel at axe-throwing.

To clarify, she does not throw axes while dancing on a pole at the same time.

And thankfully for her, she won the title four years ahead of schedule, having predicted earlier last year that she would win it by the age of 35.

Ms McGowan, who has competed in Scotland, Sweden and Germany, explained: “It helps me centre, it helps me work on my balance, it helps me work on my core.

“The pole-dancing community is actually very similar to the axe-throwing community where you’ve got that love, camaraderie and support.

“I’ve just been working to build myself up more and more and more in preparation for what I knew was the world championships coming up in Canada.”

The world championships for 2022 took place over the weekend in Nova Scotia, eastern Canada.

While excelling individually, her team did not progress past the quarter finals of the tournament.

She won the final having beaten off competitors from Germany, Estonia and Sweden.

Speaking to RTE News last year, she explained how axe throwing makes her feel.

She said: “It’s the power of picking up an axe and feeling like a badass.

“You look at this big thing that has got four sharp points on it, two sharp blades, and I’m going to fling this over my head 20 feet down to a target that’s got a two-inch diameter bullseye and I’m going to get that.”

And she told BBC News RI this week: “A lot of the women out there throw just as well, if not better, than most of the men in the competition.

The comment might not go down well with her brother, who also competes.

Although she didn’t mention him by name, she spoke about him on Instagram at the start of the year, summing up her 2021.

She posted: “This year (2021) I travelled and I got to compete side by side with my brother in his very first axe throwing competition!”

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