This N.H. axe-throwing champion proved he’s a cut above the rest - The Boston Globe (2024)

For the 27-year-old, the championship was the culmination of an impressive three-year run in which he finished second (2022), third (2023), and ultimately first at the International Axe Throwing Championship. It also was the crowning moment in a mercurial rise for a young man who picked up the sport just five years ago.

“I had worked so hard, and come so close the two years prior, that I do feel it gave me an extra boost in motivation to finally get it done this year,” Agosti said.

Agosti, who played soccer and basketball in high school, threw his first axe in 2019, while on a break during his senior year at Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania.

“I went home for a weekend, and my mom was like, ‘Oh you should try this out. You’ll really enjoy it,’ ” Agosti said. “I wasn’t really interested at the time, but she was like, ‘Just try it once.’ And from that day, I was hooked instantly.

“It felt like something I could be competitive in again,” he said. “And there was an actual sense of a community feel right off the bat, from the moment I stepped in. That’s something I really appreciated about it.”

Agosti soon became a regular at Ace Axe Throwing in Homestead, a neighborhood of Pittsburgh. It was the crew at Ace Axe, and “a lot of hours of practicing,” that resulted in Agosti developing into a promising competitive axe-thrower in a matter on months.

“It took a lot of time and effort to get there [the world championships],” he said. “There’s a lot of people I threw against in Pittsburgh that helped me get there, always wanting to go down and practice and essentially make each other better. I attribute everything to everybody else, because without them I wouldn’t have been able to get here.”

The world championship featured 256 competitors, from throughout North America and as far as England and Australia, who went through a yearlong process of accumulating points at numerous IATC-sponsored tournaments to qualify for Toronto. The city, considered the birthplace of the sport, annually hosts the world championships.

During one of those tournaments — the Urban Open in Baltimore last August — Agosti met his future fiancée, Michaela Duffy, a native of Billerica. “We began talking constantly and started a long-distance relationship,” Duffy said. “It was incredibly challenging at first, but we figured out a groove that worked for us. We tried to call each other every day and visited each other about every two weeks.”

The couple grew closer, and Agosti moved to New Hampshire this past March, where he works remotely as a scheduling specialist for the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. He and Duffy throw competitively and socially at Wicked Axe in Haverhill. That has given Duffy a chance to witness firsthand what makes Agosti a special axe-thrower.

“In terms of physical ability, Austin is able to throw for hours on end without becoming fatigued,” Duffy said. “This is key during long tournaments, where you have to throw back-to-back matches with little or no break time.”

But what really sets Agosti apart from the competition, Duffy said, is his mental focus and ability to block out any distractions.

“When he throws, it’s just him and the board,” she said. “He plays against himself rather than his opponent.”

In tournament play, two competitors stand almost side-by-side, in parallel lanes, throwing hatchet-style axes at circular targets 170 inches (just over 14 feet) away. The players get five throws each, with the total score determining the winner. If overtime is required, competitors move back to a line 220 inches (over 18 feet) away, and throw larger “clutch” axes, which are almost twice as long. The competition is very similar to repeatedly shooting free throws, said Agosti, calling on his previous basketball experience.

Over the course of the two-day championship tournament, Agosti competed in 10 matches. Consistency was essential. That’s where his mental toughness was on full display.

“I’ve gathered a routine now to the point where I have to do that routine every single time I throw,” he said, adding that the routine allows him to concentrate solely on his throwing, and not the tournament or his competitor. “In my mind, once I do that routine, it sets me up for the rest of the match and I’m like, ‘OK, I can do this every time.’ ”

However, Agosti had another secret advantage. He proposed to Duffy just before the competition, and she accepted. The engagement, he said, ensured that he came into the tournament with the ideal mindset.

“My real strength was getting engaged prior [to the championship],” he said. “I didn’t have that sitting on top of my head the entire weekend. Honestly, that helped immensely. Michaela has always, from the moment we’ve been together, been a rock for me and helped calm me down if I’m ever in a stressful situation. She really helped with that.”

But Duffy, a graduate of Stonehill College who works for Oxford Biomedica in Bedford, said all the credit belongs to her beau.

“Austin is one of the most humble people in the [axe-throwing] community,” she said. “He always attributes his successes to the people who have helped him along the way. The combination of his skill level and humility make him an incredible role model for throwers around the world.”

Globe correspondent Brion O’Connor can be reached at brionoc@verizon.net.