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Cheese Rolling

In Gloucester, England, there is a tiny village called Brockworth. Built ages ago along an ancient Roman road, it has a population of slightly more than 7,300. The village is just a speck on a map—until spring arrives. That’s when people from near and far come to Cooper’s Hill to get their fill of cheese—Gloucester cheese, to be specific. Yet, no one eats the cheese. Instead, they chase it.

Objective: To chase a rolling wheel of cheese down a hill. Danger: Broken bones, pulled muscles, and sprained ankles are the main risks.

Did You Know? Authorities tried to

As its name suggests, this offbeat sport involves scrambling down Cooper’s Hill after a rolling wheel of Gloucester cheese. The first person to cross the finish line with cheese in hand is the winner. While the competition might seem strange, or even quaint, depending on your point of view, it is also highly dangerous. People have sustained broken bones, torn ligaments , and hard knocks to their noggins. The reason cheese rolling is dangerous has a lot to do with physics. The cheese starts its journey one-second before the humans begin to scramble. That’s just enough time for momentum and gravity to take over. As the rolling cheese picks up speed, reaching up to 70 mph (112 kmh), so do the people tumbling after it, who often collide with each other and hurt themselves. In fact, things got so dangerous that in 2013, the organizers of the roll replaced the wheel of cheese with a foam cheese. cancel the event in 2009 due to safety concerns, but it happens every year anyway. A Bite of History No one knows for sure how cheese rolling came about. One theory suggests its origins date back to the 1400s as a way for farmers to maintain livestock grazing rights on the village common. Another explanation is that the event was a pagan ritual, but instead of cheese, people threw bundles of burning wood down the hill as winter ended.

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