IT IS SIMULTANEOUSLY one of the strangest, riskiest and most inexplicable traditions of our neighbours across the water.
Every year, brave/foolhardy participants chase a giant 7lb wheel of cheese down a steep hill in Gloucestershire in England. Or, as was the case earlier this week, a fake foam cheese replacing the real wheel of cheese in the interests of safety (although we’re not quite clear on how that makes it any safer).
The event was won by 27-year-old Kenny Rackers, who travelled 4,000 miles to take part after seeing it on television and trained hard in advance. “It put it on my bucket list and today it was to win and that’s what I did,” he told reporters afterwards.
The event has attracted the attention of health and safety officials in recent years, who cancelled it in 2009 after more than 10,000 people turned up to watch. Since then, it has been held as an unofficial event every year, with the BBC reporting that the 86-year-old woman who has made the wheel of Double Gloucester for the past 25 years was warned by police that she could be held responsible if there were any injuries during the race.
Here’s how it looked:
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