The Afford sisters raised on a Woods Point dairy farm have wiped the floor at the Sydney Royal Show over the weekend picking themselves up the winner and runner up titles in the National Dairy Paraders' Championship competitions.
"COOL, calm and collected" was how the judge for the 2021 National Dairy Paraders' Championship described the winner Courtney Alford as she paraded her animal at the Sydney Royal Show on Saturday.
Courtney was representing SA in the final after they were delayed until this year following the cancellation of the Royal Queensland Show (Ekka) last year, where the finals were originally scheduled to be held.
Courtney is no stranger to the state finals, but this was her first attempt at the national competition.
"The first time I won the SA finals I was too young to compete in the national final," she said.
Her parents run both Holsteins and Ayrshire and she has been showing their cattle since she was five years old.
During the 2018 Adelaide Show she won a dairy cow and that got her started on building up her own herd.
She now has 40 cows which are run as part of her parents milking herd.
Judge Jessica Gavenlock from Tallygaroopna in northern Victoria said the competition in the final was of a very high standard and sorting out the placing was very tight.
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"Being able to calm her animal down after we switched the handlers around was what set Courtney apart and pushed her into first position," she said.
Meanwhile during the judging of the 2022 National Dairy Paraders' Championship at the Sydney Royal Show moments later, her sister Tegan took home the reserve ribbon.
Tegan said she found it hard when Courtney won as she wanted to celebrate her sisters win but also had to get into a mindset to go out into the ring shortly after.
"I found that really hard but it was also really cool that we got to experience that because I don't think a lot of people can say that they went to a national competition with their sibling," she said.
"I thought that was probably the coolest thing was that we got to do it together.
"It's something that we're both very passionate about.
"We've grown up versing each other not necessarily in the same age group but in Adelaide, sometimes we'd end up in the same championship class and it's just cool to be able to go and not have to worry about challenging each other."
Tegan said she had been to nationals before and it was another level of intensity.
"I came third when I went last time," she said.
The 2022 winner was Jaxon Gillam, 22, a dairyman from near Burnie in Tasmania, and the third placing went to Abbie Hanks, Victoria.
The reserve in the 2021 competition was awarded to Georgia Sieben from Torrumbarry, Victoria, and Thomas Wade, Mudjimba, Queensland, placed third.
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