CNN
—
It’s been described as the world’s most dangerous race, and it’s certainly one of the most ridiculous – a 200-yard dash after a wheel of Double Gloucester cheese.
To win, all you have to do is chase it down a grassy hill and cross the finish line before anyone else; however, that’s much easier said than done. The hill is so steep that it could give you vertigo on the start line and there is absolutely no guarantee that you will make it down to the bottom in one piece.
“You’ve just got to have a disregard for your own safety,” Chris Anderson explained to CNN Sports. Anderson won his first of his record 23 races in 2005 and broke his ankle in the celebrations, but the excruciating pain and eight weeks in a cast didn’t put him off.
The next year he won again, but he doesn’t remember much about his third victory in 2007, when he crossed the finish line unconscious. “That was a bit of a blur,” he noted, recalling that he’d banged his head on the way down.
Nobody seems to know for sure how long they’ve been chasing cheese wheels down Cooper’s Hill in the village of Brockworth in southwest England, but it first appeared in written records in 1826. It might have started as a pagan ritual to bless the farmers’ crops, or perhaps they were originally rolling barrels down to test their integrity – a cooper is, after all, a barrel maker.
But it’s a tradition that the locals have fought to preserve and it’s one they are intensely proud of. And now, with the advent of the internet age, it’s an event which has become truly international; thousands of people flock to the event on the last bank holiday in May, and winners have hailed from as far afield as New Zealand and Australia, Egypt and the United States.
But the ultimate champions are the people who know the hill best: the locals. “I used to go up there camping with my friends,” Anderson said. “We used to get drunk and throw each other down.”
The hill is absurdly steep: an initial drop of 60 degrees with an average of 45 degree incline. Looking down from the top, it initially seems like a sheer drop and many runners have changed their minds at the last minute when they realize what they’re in for.
“The first 10 meters are, like, near vertical,” Anderson explained to CNN. “You’ve just got to almost dive into it and try to stay on your feet.
“As soon as you go, there’s no stopping, you’ve just got the let momentum take over. Just try and keep on your feet as long as possible, and if you fall, get up as quick as you can.”
Ideally, Anderson prefers the ground to be soft, but not wet. The drier it is, the better the traction, the harder the terrain, the greater the potential for injuries.
Video footage of any cheese rolling race depicts a scene of utter chaos. Few competitors are able to remain upright for very long, some are anxiously trying to maintain control by sliding on their bottoms, while others have lost all dignity, careening down in various states of distress.
Still images captured by photographers at the bottom present a confusing tableau, as if a giant has tipped a box of action figures out onto the hillside, bodies are upside down, or airborne sideways, and limbs are flailing everywhere.
Anderson first attended the cheese rolling when he was around 10 years old, and he remembers seeing the mass of humanity flashing past him on the hill.
“It was so fun to watch people flying and falling,” he reminisced, adding that it wasn’t all fun and games. “One of the most standout things was someone breaking their leg, his studs got stuck in the ground and the momentum just pushed him forward. He was sat in the middle of the hill with his leg just dangling, it was pretty disgusting!”
Serious injuries are practically guaranteed, one year Anderson witnessed three broken ankles, two of which belonged to international runners who missed their flights home because of emergency surgery.
Ankle injuries are common – some have witnessed feet out of alignment by 180 degrees – as are concussions; 2023 women’s champion Delaney Irving was knocked out just before the finish line and only learned of her triumph when she was told about it in the medical enclosure.
On the Netflix docuseries “We Are the Champions,” women’s record holder and four-time winner Flo Early revealed a protrusion of her right shoulder, a permanent disfigurement, caused by a collar bone that was broken on the hill.
It’s therefore no surprise that many runners might need a splash of alcohol in order to run. Anderson said that the races used to start at 6:30 p.m. in the evening, but the start time was moved earlier because too many people were intoxicated. Now, runners in need of some Dutch courage just start drinking earlier.
Anderson told CNN Sports he prepares in moderation by drinking a single can of lager on the walk up. “I always saw that if you were drunk and you broke something, there’s not a great deal they can give you for the pain, so I always try to do it as sober as possible,” he said.
Signs posted all over the hill make it clear that runners are participating at their own risk, the local enthusiasts who stage the event say they are not official organizers – in case of injury, there is nobody to sue, and the event is uninsured.
Nevertheless, the BBC reported in 2013 that the Gloucestershire police force advised 86-year-old cheesemaker Diana Smart – who makes the 6.6-pound (three-kilogram) wheel of Double Gloucester cheese used in the race – that she could be held liable because anyone who facilitates the event could be deemed an organizer by default.
Anderson told CNN that he never had any intention of breaking the record of 21 cheese wins, which was set in 1991, but once he got to 13, he decided to keep going. In 2011 and 2017, he won three races in a single day and he broke the record with two more wins in 2018.
At the age of 37, he’s recovering from a long-term hip injury – and he is “supposed to be retired” – but if his 16-year-old son decides to compete then he could be tempted back onto the hill, partly to make sure he does it right.
“I’d be happy for him to run,” he said, “but I’ve told him if you’re not gonna commit, there’s no point in even doing it.” The veteran cheese-chaser knows that there are many ways to be hurt on the hill. “The most dangerous thing is going slow and getting hit from behind. I’d like him to be quick enough to get away from the carnage.”
And if he ever decides to run again, he said it won’t be for the cheese: “I actually don’t like it. It’s got quite a strong aftertaste to it.”
