Controlled collapse

Editor's note: The following text is a transcript of a podcast story. To listen to the story, click on the arrow beneath the headline above.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Thousands gathered at Cooper’s Hill in Gloucestershire, England, for the annual cheese rolling competition.

Competitors submit to gravity to chase a seven-pound wheel of Double Gloucester down a hillside so steep that running can only be described as theoretical.

SOUND: [Crowd yelling / people tumbling]

German YouTuber Tom Kopke won the first men's downhill race for the third straight year.

AUDIO: It was crazy. I think this was my most controlled run ever. I don’t know how it looked …

I know how it looked, and “controlled” was really not the word that sprang to mind.

Kopke says that during the race he managed to spot a rival ahead of him and figured he’d better pick up the pace.

AUDIO: I need to go faster…

Yeah. He says he sprinted the rest of the way down, though at Cooper’s Hill, sprinting appears to mean "falling with purpose."

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