Sheep shearers flock to world championship in France

Sheep shearing experts flocked to a small town in the French countryside on Thursday for the opening of the annual world championship, a four-day event held for the first time on French soil.

More than 320 competitors from 34 countries as far apart as Norway, Japan and the Cook Islands, are battling it out to win titles in woolhandling, machine shearing and "blade" shearing, a traditional method using scissors.

And the 5,000 sheep on site will no doubt appreciate a hair cut, with temperatures expected to peak at 34 degrees Celsius (93 degrees Fahrenheit) over the coming days in Le Dorat, a town in central France.

It is the first time the international competition sets foot -- and hoof -- on French soil, although the town, which is home to 1,800 people, has previously hosted the French sheep shearing championships in 2013 as well as the Six Nations tournament the same year.

Last year, it also welcomed a 24-hour sheep shearing marathon, with six shearers clipping around 2,500 sheep, producing six tonnes of fleece.

"The world championship, it's so fantastic, so spectacular, we want to share it with the French people," said Christophe Riffaud, president of the Association for the World Sheep Shearing Championship (AMTM) who has competed in Northern Ireland and the Netherlands."