Friday, May 26, 2023

Time, Once Again, For The Most Extreme Sport In The World (that involves cheese)

As noted last year, coming out of covid:

After two years of "Gloucestershire Cheese Rolling 2021 has been cancelled" and "Gloucestershire Cheese Rolling cancelled for 2020 amid ..." the pent-up anticipation is almost unbearable: The beauty, the grace, the effortless athleticism....

First up, from GloucestershireLive:

When is the 2023 Cheese Rolling taking place in Gloucestershire?
The Coopers Hill Cheese Rolling is one of the UK's most bizarre and extreme sporting events, and it happens on our doorstep

https://i2-prod.gloucestershirelive.co.uk/news/gloucester-news/article7167993.ece/ALTERNATES/s810/3_cheese-rolling-12.jpg

Contestants in the men's downhill race chase the cheese down Cooper's Hill in Gloucester, 2022.

....MUCH MORE

And from SoGlos:

Gloucestershire Cheese Rolling
The world-famous Gloucestershire Cheese Rolling is back for another year in May 2023, with spectators flocking from far and wide to see the daring sporting action on Cooper’s Hill.


The cheese will roll down Cooper's Hill on Monday 29 May 2023.

....MUCH MORE, including video.

Finally, some in-depth reportage:

Reluctant locals forced to participate in cheese rolling
UNWILLING Gloucestershire residents have been made to chase a wheel of cheese down a hill by Londoners wanting to see authentic rural life.

To the chagrin of the locals, they were forced to recreate their proud tradition of risking life and limb running down a near-vertical gradient in pursuit of cheese for the amusement of weekend visitors.
Tom Logan of Stroud said: “We don’t actually do stuff like this any more. I’m an IT consultant.
“If I need cheese I just go to Tesco. Even a really big cheese doesn’t excite me to the point where I’d be willing to break an ankle.

“But they said we had to, and they’re rich, and if they sold up property values round here would collapse, so we all chased a cheese down a hill and my solicitor’s fractured two vertebrae.”...MORE

And because we left these announcements in a bleeping computer rather than using the tried-and-true Post-It Note we apologize for the rush and fully understand if you can't make it to the spectacle. 

However, should you arrive too late for the contests, all is not lost. 

Cooper's Hill is #6 on the SoGlos list "20 of the most romantic places to propose in Gloucestershire" while nearby Cranham Woods is one of the "14 of the best places to walk your dog in Gloucestershire."