Posted May 30, 2023 7:18 am ET
Updated May 30, 2023 9:39 am ET
Competitors take part in the women’s downhill race during the Cheese Rolling competition at Cooper’s Hill in Brockworth, Gloucestershire on Monday 29th May 2023. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
LONDON – The big cheese of extreme sports events is back in the UK.
19-year-old Canadian competitor Delaney Irving won the women’s race despite being briefly unconscious.
“All I remember is hitting my head and now I have the cheese,” said Irving, who is from Nanaimo, British Columbia. Hundreds of spectators gathered on Monday to watch dozens of ruthless racers chase a 7-pound (3 kilogram) loaf of Double Gloucester cheese down the near-vertical Cooper’s Hill near Gloucester in south-west England.
The first racer to finish behind the fast-rolling cheese gets to keep it.
The cheese-rolling race has been held at Cooper’s Hill, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) west of London, since at least 1826, and the sport of cheese-rolling is believed to be much older.
The turbulent event is often accompanied by safety concerns. Few competitors manage to stay on their feet all the way down the 200-yard (180-meter) hill, and this year several had to be helped off the course with a limp.
Matt Crolla, 28, from Manchester in north-west England, won the first of several men’s races. When asked how he prepared, he told reporters: “I don’t think you can train for that, do you? It’s just being an idiot.”
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