To celebrate Russia’s professional holiday, “Miners’ Day”, the region hosted the first-ever “Master Miner 2014” competition. Held in Kupol on August 31st, two five-man teams from Dvoinoye and Kupol completed a makeshift obstacle course and took part in various operations-based challenges.
Participants in the 2014 Master Miner competition, along with judges.
The obstacle course consisted of three stages, starting with an agility-based relay race. Competitors rushed to put on miner’s coveralls, crawled through a five-metre-long ventilation pipe, climbed monkey bars, filled two barrels with gravel, and concluded with truck-tire tipping and weight lifting. Team Dvoinoye, buoyed by excellent teamwork, took the first round.
Participants putting on their coveralls before crawling through the ventilation pipes.
Participants racing through the monkey bars.
Truck-tire tipping
For the second contest, participants from each team were tasked with drilling a horizontal row of three holes and driving split set bolts in each hole. Each team fared well and tied for points.
Drilling contest
The final contest challenged load haul dump (LHD) truck operators’ accuracy level, showcasing underground equipment rarely seen above ground. Two representatives from each team had to load and unload as many undamaged plastic jars as quickly as possible by remote control.
LHD truck operator with remote control.
Operators were then tasked with closing two boxes of matches and pushing two eggs into a plastic bottle using the LHD bucket without causing any damage. Both teams’ members completed the task in less than five minutes with Kupol beating Dvoinoye by one minute.
LHD bucket placing an egg into a plastic bottle.
Once all the points were tallied, Team Kupol edged out Dvoinoye to be declared the winner of “Master Miner 2014”.
After the success of the event, Claude Schimper (Regional Vice-President, Russia), Dave Neuburger (General Manager, Kupol) and Franz-Georg Ostrop (General Manager, Dvoinoye) declared the competition an annual tradition in the region. The next “Master Miner” competition will be held at the Dvoinoye mine site in 2015.
Team Kupol. From left to right: Aleksey Gayazov, Vitaliy Molchanov, Vyacheslav Rotaru, Dmitry Kirin, and Dmitry Demin.
