Last Updated on July 14, 2025 12:38 pm
Eric Frasure placed first in four of the seven men’s heavy athletic events and tied in two others during the 2025 Grandfather Mountain Highland Games, thereby claiming the top spot overall for the competition. Frasure has been attending the Grandfather Mountain Highland Games since 1998 and has competed since he was eligible, sans a retirement from 2016 to May 2025.
The 40-year-old Charlotte, N.C., native has competed in various Highland Games internationally for most of his adult life. He was a college track and field athlete at East Carolina University and claims that most of his skills from track and field have assisted him in his Highland Games successes throughout the years.
“This is just like throwing in track and field,” Frasure said. “You have all the implements, you throw in a similar field and you train the way that you compete, basically.”
Frasure prepares for Highland Games athletic events by training with a strength coach and utilizing the same equipment that is present during the games.
“Kendra Danzer, who won overall winner in women’s heavy athletics, her husband is actually my strength coach,” said Frasure. “He writes all of my workouts, and we emulate kind of exactly what we will be doing during the actual games.”
This year’s Grandfather Mountain Highland Games saw 12 men competing in front of a large crowd this past Saturday.
Frasure won the 28-pound-weight throw for distance, the hammer throw for distance, the caber (large pole) toss and the sheaf toss. He tied for second in the 56-pound-weight toss for height and the 56-pound-weight throw for distance.
Out of all of the games that Frasure has attended, Grandfather Mountain’s Highland Games are of his favorites.
“There is nowhere in the United States that feels more like you’re actually in Scotland,” said Frasure. “I have competed in Scotland before, and this is the only place in America that resembles it. The terrain is the same, the weather is the same and it is just absolutely incredible. There is seriously nowhere that feels like this other than Scotland.”
The men’s elite competition is by invitation only and featured 12 competitors vying to best each other in seven different categories: the sheaf toss (during which competitors use a pitchfork to hurl a burlap bag stuffed with straw over a horizontal bar), 56-pound-weight toss for height, stone throw, 56-pound-weight throw for distance, 28-pound-weight throw for distance, hammer (spherical weight fastened to a wooden handle) throw and caber toss.
The 2025 Grandfather Mountain Highland Games took place July 10-13 at Grandfather Mountain’s MacRae Meadows in Linville, N.C. To learn more about the Highland Games, visit www.gmhg.org.
