There's no denying the skill required to be a professional sheep shearer - just take a look at the world's fastest sheer below if you don't believe us - but sheep shearing... an Olympic sport? Really?

The New Zealand Farmers Federation thinks it should be, with the antipodean lobby group petitioning for the art of cutting a sheep's wool off to beome "a demonstration sport at the Commonwealth Games, if not the Olympics itself."

The rural campaigners' spokesperson, Jeanette Maxwell, had this to say about sheep shearing getting more international attention:

"Surely, the time has come to elevate shearing's sporting status to the ultimate world stage... I can testify to the physical effort shearing takes."

Her statement, now published online under the title of "Shear hard work makes shearing a sport" - not above a good pun, these guys - comes just a couple of months before the World Shearing Championships kick off in Masterton, New Zealand.

There you can expect teams of shearers from all over the world to join together in a massive celebration of wool, lanolin and clippers, fiercely battling it out to win categories like the eight-hour solo lamb title - currently held by Irishman Ivan Scott with 749 lambs.

See, Olympics federation? It's a cut-throat world, international sheep shearing. Not literally, mind - not if they're any good, anyway.