RICHMOND, Va. — Dan Pegg was in his early 40s when a friend first introduced him to ax throwing in his backyard.
Fast forward 10 years and Pegg has since wielded his skills to opening his own ax throwing businesses while ascending to the top of the podium.
“I was able to retire recently from the financial sector after a lot of years a high sales pressure. This was an outlet for me to decompress after a stressful day,” he recalled.
Pegg operates Virginia Axe Company in Goochland and Shield N Sheath Hatchet House in Scott’s Addition — delivering his passion to the masses.
He boasts numerous knife and ax throwing titles to his name, including a number one rotational knife podium finish in Sweden in June, and as the number one overall thrower at the United Knife and Axe Throwing World Championships in Carpi, Italy last year.
Soon, Pegg will display his skills this September 9 on “Mountain Men: Ultimate Marksman” airing on the History Channel.
The reality competition show brings together four talented competitors each week to a ranch in Montana as they strive to become the “Ultimate Marksman,” a title achieved only by completing three rounds of precision-based challenges, according to a press release.
“I tried to equate it to American Ninja Warrior but with knives,” Pegg explained. “We're not quite jumping from beams and things like that, but we are traversing a ranch in Montana, rivers, mountains, and logs. We've got moving targets and very precision based things that we have to hit.”
While Pegg couldn’t reveal how he placed on the show, the marksman or markswoman with the highest total points earns the coveted title and walks away with $10,000.
He admits that the sport could be intimidating for some beginners.
“I would tell people is you don't know what you don't know until you come down and give it a try. We give everybody a very professional lesson. You don't need to be any particular level of coordination or body type or, quite frankly, in any level of shape that you might think you might need to compete in certain sports, right? So, anybody can come down and do this and I'll prove it to you. If you come down. I will show you how to throw in you will probably like it,” he said.
