Cheese Please

26 May 2009 | 06:46:22 PM | Source: Reuters

cheese_2606_B_gett_978530588

A contestant holds up the wheel of cheese used in the competition

Cheese Rolling is not perhaps the best known of sporting events but every year thousands of spectators attend a traditional cheese rolling contest in the Gloucestershire countryside in the UK.

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An estimated 6,000 people gathered to watch the 200 contestants take part in the event which involves chasing a rolling cheese wheel down a very steep hill.
 

The event has taken place on Coopers Hill for over over  two hundred years.
"The earliest written record we have is in the middle of the 1800s...but it was obviously going on long before that" said Richard Jeffries, of the Cheese Rolling Committee that organises the event.
 
Petrol station worker Chris Anderson, 21, won this years event for a fifth consecutive year. He said there was no real secret to his success, other than running as fast as he could and leaning back.

Injury concerns

A total of 18 participants were treated following the race, a relatively low number compared with previous years. The event came under scrutiny in 1997 when 33 people were injured. One spectator lost his balance trying to dodge a bouncing cheese and tumbled 100 feet down the hill.
    

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Cheese Rolling is not perhaps the best known of sporting events but every year thousands of spectators attend a traditional cheese rolling contest in the Gloucestershire countryside in the UK.

An estimated 6,000 people gathered to watch the 200 contestants take part in the event which involves chasing a rolling cheese wheel down a very steep hill.
 

The event has taken place on Coopers Hill for over over  two hundred years.
"The earliest written record we have is in the middle of the 1800s...but it was obviously going on long before that" said Richard Jeffries, of the Cheese Rolling Committee that organises the event.
 
Petrol station worker Chris Anderson, 21, won this years event for a fifth consecutive year. He said there was no real secret to his success, other than running as fast as he could and leaning back.

Injury concerns

A total of 18 participants were treated following the race, a relatively low number compared with previous years. The event came under scrutiny in 1997 when 33 people were injured. One spectator lost his balance trying to dodge a bouncing cheese and tumbled 100 feet down the hill.
    

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