A German hairdresser has won the designate of world's best beard at the World Beard and Moustache Championship in Trondheim, Norway. Elmar Weisser, 47, beat 160 contestants to the prize with his complicated facial hair carving of a moose. 

It is the third time Mr Weisser has appeared as champion. 

In 2005 he won with with a beard styled into the figure of Berlin's Brandenberg Gate, and in 2007 with a illustration of London's Tower Bridge. 

He said he had begun preparing his manufacture for the Trondheim event at 7am, with the help of his sister. 

"When my beard isn't styled, it goes along to my waist. It is sort of folded up," he said the AFP news agency. 

The World Beard and Moustache Championship have been running every two years since 1995 and its organisers say it is the premier event in the worldwide sport of bearding. 

Organisers say the field has usually been dominated by Europeans but that the US, which has twice hosted the event, is fast becoming "the world's new facial hair super power".