I had a funny talk with one of our coaches. He asked what I liked to do, I said chop and saw. He said good, because big guys are really safer bets in those things. You don't need to be huge to do well with any of this, but being 6'5" and 250 makes low, light balance things almost too much of a challenge.
Members of our team do all the normal events like pole climb, birling, vertical and horizontal chops, single and double buck sawing. There are a couple other things like caber toss, axe throw, etc. that are really novel more than anything.
I chop vertical and horizontal, saw single, double and jack and jill. I some times axe throw, but it is mostly to pass time when I am waiting to chop and saw.
A good practice axe is $150-200. The one pictured is a practice grind on a racing axe, so it is larger and was more like $275. Racing axes ground for racing go from $350-500.
Oddly, being from Wisconsin, I get my axes from a Stihl series guy in southern Wisconsin, heads and handles. A friend is currently in New Zealand, one of the big logging sports places, where the factories that make my axes is located. I am trying to see if he can put some in a box.
I do this and am trying to get better:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvaLAqbz-_A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUMqHGsSieM