LONDON, UK — The big cheese of extreme U.K. sports events is back.
Hundreds of spectators gathered Monday to watch dozens of reckless racers chase a 7-pound wheel of Double Gloucester cheese down the near-vertical Cooper’s Hill, near Gloucester in southwest 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 west of London, since at least 1826, and the sport of cheese-rolling is believed to be much older.
The rough-and-tumble event often comes with safety concerns. Few competitors manage to stay on their feet all the way down the 200-yard hill, and this year several had to be helped, limping, from the course.
Canadian contestant Delaney Irving, 19, won the women’s race despite being briefly knocked unconscious.
“I just remember hitting my head, and now I have the cheese,” said Irving, who comes from Nanaimo, British Columbia.
She added that the race was "good... now that I remember it," according to the BBC. "I remember running, then bumping my head, and then I woke up in the tent," she said.
Matt Crolla, 28, from Manchester in northwestern England, won the first of several men’s races. Asked how he had prepared, he told reporters: “I don’t think you can train for it, can you? It’s just being an idiot.”
He said he was glad to be "pretty conscious" and without "many serious injuries."
In one of the next men's races, an American from Washington took home the top prize.
Cooper Cummings, who ran the race wearing a Seattle Seahawks jersey, told reporters afterward he felt "super emotional" about winning and planned to maybe "hit some pubs" to celebrate.
Last year, an American woman won the cheese rolling title for the first time.
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