Canadian Woman Gets Knocked Unconscious During Cheese Rolling Contest, Wins Anyway
19-year-old Canadian Delaney Irving entered the annual tumbling race on a whim.
Annabel Lee-Ellis / Getty Images
Double Gloucester cheese is a hard cow’s milk cheese that has a nutty flavor which pairs well with brown ales or rich ports. Although it’s aged longer and has a stronger taste than Single Gloucester, it’s also reasonably easy to find in England — which means you don’t have to throw yourself down an impossibly steep hill if you want to try it.
Despite its widespread availability, every year hundreds of fearless people turn up at Cooper’s Hill near Gloucester for the annual cheese-rolling race. If you’re lucky, you’ll leave the event dazed, dizzy, and in possession of the seven-pound wheel of Double Gloucester that goes to the winner. If you’re less lucky, you’ll pick up scrapes, bruises, and perhaps even a minor brain injury.
Annabel Lee-Ellis / Getty Images
The winner of the women’s cheese rolling race this year was Delaney Irving, a 19-year-old Canadian who was finishing up a six-week trip through Europe. When she happened to be in Gloucester on the day of the race, she decided that she’d enter the competition. “We didn’t really prepare for it at all,” she told CTV News earlier this week. “All we did to prepare was, my friend and I took turns jumping on our hotel bed and doing a roll as best as we could.”
Even England’s worst hotel beds can’t replicate the head-swimmingly steep incline of Cooper’s Hill: Irving told the outlet that videos she’d watched of previous races didn’t prepare her for how steep it actually was. She wasn’t put off though, and was among those who chased the rolling wheel of cheese down the hill… and that’s about all she remembers.
Irving was knocked unconscious as she rolled down the hill, and when she finally came to, she was in the medical tent. She also had a wheel of cheese on her lap because, despite being completely out of it, she won her race. “I remember running, then bumping my head,…
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