‘Try to stay on your feet’: Cheese-rolling champion unearths secrets and techniques to his luck

It is as a lot about keep watch over as out-and-out velocity. Bravery is vital – however so is a component of cautious preparation and making plans.

Over the years, Chris Anderson, the record-breaking cheese-chasing king of Cooper’s Hill in Gloucestershire, has noticed all of it. Lots of wins but additionally losses and harm.

Now having stepped again from the once a year madcap, helter-skelter race, Anderson is taking at the function of elder statesman, satisfied to cross on his revel in to somebody who’d love to pay attention.

“It’s risky, there’s no doubt about it,” he mirrored after the newest version of the development this half-term week. “You’ve just got to be able to try and stay on your feet as long as possible and lean backwards so you can stay in control of yourself.

“Obviously you need to be fast but overall it’s better to stay in control rather than going flat out.” If you fall, the most efficient wager is a military roll – Anderson used to serve within the British army so he used to be excellent at that – after which again in your ft as temporarily as imaginable.

He reckons mid-20s is the best age for a cheese-roller. “Fit but with a bit of experience as well.” And, in fact, you want to have the proper mindset. “You’ve got to be someone who enjoys an adrenaline rush.”

Anderson, who received the development – wherein a spherical of double gloucester cheese is pursued down the steep incline – 23 occasions, incomes himself a spot in Guinness World Records, suggests that any one in need of to go into will have to seek advice from the web page sooner than the day itself.

Because at the hill, possibly as in lifestyles itself, other folks have to search out their very own means. Anderson, 37, now a floor employee, had his most popular direction, keeping off a tough hole. “I strongly advise visiting the hill before you make the decision to get up there and do it. So many people turn up on the day wanting to run it, then look at it and say: ‘No way.’”

Anderson grew up within the village of Brockworth, the place the development takes position. “So it’s always been a tradition in my family. I always saw it happening.”

When he used to be in his teenagers he and his pals used to head up the hill every so often and, as boys will, push each and every different down. “We were just having a laugh in our holidays.”

At the age of 16 in 2004 he entered the development right kind and got here 2d. “I thought I’ll do it again and win it.” He did simply that the next yr.

Though the real race went smartly, the aftermath used to be much less a success.

“I broke my ankle celebrating at the bottom. I jumped up to celebrate and I fell in a hole.” He recovered, got here again and saved successful, changing into one thing of a neighborhood hero. His simplest different severe harm used to be bruising to his kidneys in 2011.

After successful his 23rd race in 2022, he made up our minds to retire. “I broke the record so there was no need to carry on really.”

Nobody is certain when the development started however many locals say it is going again masses of years. “I think it is something like 600 years,” Anderson mentioned. “Perhaps it was an old pagan ritual to bring good luck for the harvest.”

He has noticed cheese rolling develop in reputation into one thing of an international tournament which pulls media consideration from internationally. “That’s been down to the internet. The internet has made it huge.”

Ahead of this week’s tournament, the Tewkesbury borough protection advisory workforce declared the development unsafe, expressing worry about how emergency products and services would be capable of reply if there used to be a significant incident with a couple of casualties on the spot, which is difficult to get right of entry to.

An air ambulance and 5 land ambulances attended this time after accidents and two other folks went to health center.

“Obviously it is a dangerous sport, one of those extreme sports,” mentioned Anderson. “But I wouldn’t say it’s any more dangerous than motocross or mountain biking or anything like that.”

Winners this yr integrated a Gloucester guy, a London girl and two global contestants, one from Germany, the opposite from New Zealand.

Anderson mentioned he wasn’t going to be tempted out of retirement. Ironically, he’s nursing a working harm. “I did a marathon last year. I didn’t train for it, I just went for it. I did an OK time but I just overdid it and I’ve got a hip flexor injury.”

He is a father of 3 and certainly one of his teenage kids fancies a cross at it. “I’ve tried to push him away from doing it. I think he’s just trying to prove himself to me. When he gets to 18 it’ll be up to him but I’d rather he didn’t do it.”