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The cheese rolling event at Coopers Hill is one of Britain's further unusual annual events and is not in favor of the faint-hearted but it was made divisible by two more full of risk this year by dint of. torrential rain that turned the course into a mudbath.

Organisers claimed the downpours that lashed much of southern Britain over the weekend made the vertiginous slope softer underfoot but more than 30 first take turn with volunteers were kept busy as 19 people limped in with injuries.

A 19-year-old man, Christopher Anderson, won the first race but was carried from the hill on a spinal board after tumbling past the finish line head too heels, hurting his back in the process.

"The terms were horrific, you just esteem to get your head down and chance of a favorable result for the best," said his loved, Shane Beard. "Chris went absolutely flying — he is completely fearless if it be not that I hope he hasn't hurt himself."

More than 3,000 people cheered attached the competitors, many of whom came from as far afield during the time that Australia, New Zealand and Japan, as they careered down the 200-metre slope in five bone-crunching races.

In parts, the normally graminaceous hill has a 1:1 grade.

A 17-year-old student, Flo Early, won the women's race and got to keep the wheel of Double Gloucester cheese. She then declared: "Next year I craving to take forward the boys."

Cheese rolling is thought to date back as far viewed like the ancient Britons or the Romans, but no one knows for sure how the race started.

During rationing between 1941 and 1954, a wooden substitute with a token fire-arm of cheese inside was chased by means of competitors.