World champions galore lift off and pipe up to battle at 2010 Cowal Gathering

Current and previous world champions will head to Dunoon in Argyll in nine days time – yes, nine days time – to compete at Scotland’s biggest highland games, Cowal Highland Gathering. The event runs from 26th to 28th August at the Dunoon Stadium and is geared up to entertain up to 23,000 visitors across the three days with a string of hotly competitive championship events.

The newly crowned 2010 World Pipe Band Champions at Grade One, Dublin’s St Laurence O’Toole Pipe Band, will compete in the globally acclaimed Cowal Pipe Band Championships, the last of the 2010 major championships.  In Dunoon it will again be up against Northern Ireland’s Field Marshall Montgomery Pipe Band, this year’s and last’s runner up at the Worlds and last year’s Cowal Champions.

Both bands will also compete against the Toronto Police Pipe Band from Canada, one of the top pipe bands in the world. This band made the decision to compete at the 2010 Cowal Games and not the Worlds in Glasgow. An interview with the band in this month’s Piping Today Magazine revealed that the band is ‘heading to Cowal to win’ and that it is ‘something different, a new experience and the right place to go this year’.

2009 World Heavy Athletic Champion, Aaron Neighbour from Melbourne, Australia, makes his first trip to Cowal Highland Gathering to compete in the 2010 Cowal Heavy Athletic Championships.

Neighbour, 6’6” and weighing 280lbs, was crowned World Champion at The Gathering event at Holyrood Park, Edinburgh last year. Strong competition is expected between himself, the 2007 World Champion Gregor Edmunds and five times Cowal Championship winner Jason Young.

This context will be awesome.

The Adult World Highland Dancing Championships the at Cowal Gathering will see the 2009 World Champion, David Wilton, return to Dunoon to compete and reclaim his title he has now held for three years running.

More than 500 highland dancers overall will compete this year, with some as young as seven years old. The Gathering also hosts the World Juvenile and Junior, Argyll and Scottish Highland Dancing Championships.

Cowal Highland Gathering offers a wide range of family entertainments every year. Heavy athletes and more than 500 highland dancers and 3,000 pipers travel from all over the world to compete to win championship titles. Saturday celebrates with the very best of the region’s local food and drink, a ceilidh tent, children’s entertainment tent, fairground rides, market stalls, the March Past, a parade through the town and a spectacular fireworks display at night. This year the event welcomes former Dr Who star Sylvester McCoy as its honorary Chieftain.

The 2010 Cowal Highland Gathering isat Dunoon Stadium, Argyll from Thursday 26th to Saturday 28th August,from 9.00am to 6.00pm each day. For tickets and more information:

• visit the Cowal Gathering website
• phone 01369 703 206