CSWC Norway

There has been a lot of talk about the new Cigar Smoking World Championship competition cigar from Oliva, and as expected, it will most certainly result in shorter times. It wasn’t really noticeable in the first qualifier of the season, in Denmark last weekend. The top times were about the same as they ever were. In the Norwegian qualifier however, it was suddenly obvious when notorious three-hour smokers like Tormod Skaaraas and Rolf Broch suddenly didn’t reach this particular milestone.

It takes time to navigate a new cigar and at the picturesque Augusto Lounge in Oslo, almost all of the 16 participants experienced the same kind of issues with their cigar. In fact, the final results of both Skaaraas and Broch were around 45 minutes short of their best performances with the former competition cigar from Rocky Patel.

“Canoeing, or burning more heavily on one side, became a common issue, most likely due to the cigars being relatively fresh,” guest smoker Zoran Pejovic from Croatia, says. “This added an extra layer of difficulty and contributed to shorter overall smoking times compared with previous years.”

“We’re not sure what caused the uneven burning of the cigar,” organizer and judge André Veiby says. “It was stored in our warehouse in Oslo at 63 percent humidity for a month before the competition, so it wasn’t ‘travel sick’. Still, a lot of participants managed to keep control the cigar and achieve good results.”

Like Skaaraas, who smoked for 2 hours 30 minutes and 30 seconds, thereby securing his third championship title in a row.

“The last hour of the competition, with half of the competitors out, the room was filled with an air of calmness and concentration,” Veiby says. “You could hear the clock ticking and Broch even smoked 20 minutes under the ring without burning it.”

But it wasn’t enough this time. This was the 9^th qualifier in Norway and for the first time in a few years, the 2022 Norwegian champion didn’t end up first or second. Instead last year’s second runner up, Brede Rørhus, was the only one in the top three to actually improve his performance from last year, when he broke up the Dynamic Duo and finished at 2 hours 26 minutes and 15 seconds, just four minutes behind Skaaraas. Have we maybe witnessed the birth of yet another Norwegian contender for the world champion title?

1. Tormod Skaaraas 2:30:30
2. Brede Rørhus 2:26:15
3. Rolf Broch 2:22:27