But every one of the 16858 kilometres between Deloraine and Marseilles was worth it when the 21-year-old claimed the timbersports rookie world championship.

Competing in front of a vocal crowd by the harbour of the southern French city, Gurr survived a nerve-wracking finish to become the first Australian to claim the title. 

“I’m stoked, an Australian has never won the rookie title before,” he said.

“Today’s result makes me the best timbersports rookie globally, and I’m honoured to have represented my country and made my Mum, Dad, and all the woodchoppers in Australia proud. 

“It’s been a huge couple of months back home, I was hospitalised with an illness before I came to France, and I’m so glad all the hard work paid off in the end.

“There’s a strong representation of athletes in Australia so to be the best in Australia and come and represent them is fantastic. I’ve never seen anything like this before so it’s great to come away to a different place and experience different sights.”

Gurr accumulated the most points across four woodchopping disciplines in a combined time of 1:00:20 seconds.

In a thrilling final underhand chop, he was trailing Michael Del Pin by three points but smashed his personal best to take maximum points as the Italian fell 30 seconds short, with American Chas Hass third.

“I knew if I performed to the best of my ability I’d be hard to beat,” Gurr said.

“I can't believe it. I didn’t have the best day. The sawing disciplines I’ve worked on real hard and they were a bit disappointing, but luck just fell my way and it’s unbelievable.

“It feels good. I’ve put a lot of work into this. You only get one shot at this rookie championship and I’m just rapt.

“It’s a great place to be, the crowd’s amazing, it’s fantastic.”

A second generation woodchopper, Gurr had to compete against the best rookie athletes in the sport, including favourites Haas and Canadian Thomas Henderson.

The championship sees eight of the best young athletes perform four disciplines against the clock, earning eight points (for the fastest) down to one. 

Gurr’s results were: stocksaw 5th (12.50, 4 points), standing block 1st (16.20, 8 points), single buck 6th (13.56, 3 points), underhand chop 1st (17.94, 8 points); total 23 points.