Kendra Danzer named overall winner in women’s heavy athletics at Grandfather Mountain Highland Games

Kendra Danzer finished first in four of the seven women’s heavy athletic events during the 2025 Grandfather Mountain Highland Games, thereby claiming the top spot overall for the competition. This is Danzer’s first time competing at Grandfather Mountain Highland Games.

The 41-year-old clinical social worker for suicide prevention who resides in Fayetteville, N.C., has been competing in heavy athletics for nearly six years. She has competed in multiple states including Virginia, South Carolina, Florida and California.

This year’s Grandfather Mountain Highland Games saw 11 women competing in front of an exceptionally large crowd this past Saturday.

Danzer started her training in 2019, just before the COVID-19 pandemic. She trains in throwing multiple times a week and spends time in the gym practicing repetition lifting and deadlifting.

The female athletes that Danzer competes alongside are a big part of what makes this particular competition so special to her.

“I like to push the other athletes,” Danzer said. “This community, you know, we are competitive on the field, but we are friends outside, so it’s really cool. I like to just go back and forth with the other athletes all day. It’s really awesome and this crowd is just great”

She enjoys sharing the field with her peers during the Highland Games and forming relationships with her fellow athletes. Danzer is excited to return to compete alongside her fellow athletes and friends at Grandfather Mountain in the future.

“This community of athletes and the crowd that Grandfather Mountain draws is just amazing,” she said.

Danzer won the sheaf toss, the 28-pound-weight toss for height, the caber (large pole) toss and the hammer throw for distance events.

Madison Weinreich was this year’s runner-up, winning the 28-pound-weight toss for distance and coming in second for the 28-pound-weight toss for height, the hammer throw for distance and the sheaf toss.

The women’s elite competition is by invitation only and featured 11 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), 28-pound-weight toss for height, stone throw, 28-pound-weight throw for distance, 14-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.