The Tetbury Woolsack Races are an annual sporting event in the English town of Tetbury, in Gloucestershire, where competitors must race up and down the steepest street in the town carrying a full woolsack on their back. It is held each year on the Whitsun Bank Holiday Monday.
The races take place on Gumstool Hill between two public houses, the Royal Oak (the bottom of the hill) and the Crown (at the top). People can take part either as individuals or as part of a team. The individuals race up the hill, the teams (with four members swapping places at each end of the course) race up and down the hill twice.
The men race with a 60-pound (27kg) woolsack, women have 30 pounds (14kg). There are also youth races where boys ages 16–18 races with a 30lb sack, and a children's class. The weight of the children's woolsack is unspecified but is likely about the same as a pillow.
Regular competitors include local rugby teams, the British Army and the Norfolk Mountain Rescue Team.
The Cotswolds is an area in south-central, West Midlands and South West England comprising the Cotswold Hills, a range of rolling hills that rise from the meadows of the upper Thames to an escarpment, known as the Cotswold Edge, above the Severn Valley and Evesham Vale.
Gloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn, and the entire Forest of Dean.
The London Marathon is an annual marathon held in London, United Kingdom. Founded by athletes Chris Brasher and John Disley in 1981, it was typically held in April but has now moved to October. The largely flat course is set around the River Thames, starting in Blackheath and finishing at The Mall. Hugh Brasher is the current Race Director and Nick Bitel its Chief Executive.
Tetbury is a town and civil parish inside the Cotswold district in England. It lies on the site of an ancient hill fort, on which an Anglo-Saxon monastery was founded, probably by Ine of Wessex, in 681. The population of the parish was 5,250 in the 2001 census, increasing to 5,472 at the 2011 census.
The Cooper's Hill Cheese-Rolling and Wake is an annual event held on the Spring Bank Holiday at Cooper's Hill, near Gloucester in England. Participants race down the 200-yard-long hill after a round of Double Gloucester cheese is sent rolling down it. The event was traditionally held by and for the people who live in the local village of Brockworth, but now people from all over the world take part. The Guardian called it a "world-famous event", with winners coming from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Nepal.
The Cheltenham Festival is a meeting in the National Hunt racing calendar in the United Kingdom, with race prize money second only to the Grand National. The four-day festival takes place annually in March at Cheltenham Racecourse in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. It usually coincides with Saint Patrick's Day and is particularly popular with Irish visitors.
The North West 200 is a Northern Irish motorsport event established in 1929 for road racing motorcycles held on a 8.970 mi (14.436 km) street circuit known as the Triangle between the towns of Portstewart, Coleraine and Portrush in Causeway Coast and Glens. The course is one of the fastest in the world, with average speeds of 120 mph (190 km/h) and top speeds in excess of 200 mph (320 km/h). The North West 200 is one of around fifteen events run on public roads between April and October throughout Northern Ireland. It is the largest annual sporting event in Northern Ireland, with the race weekend attracting over 150,000 visitors from all over the world.
Road bicycle racing is the cycle sport discipline of road cycling, held on paved roads. Road racing is the most popular professional form of bicycle racing, in terms of numbers of competitors, events and spectators. The two most common competition formats are mass start events, where riders start simultaneously and race to a set finish point; and time trials, where individual riders or teams race a course alone against the clock. Stage races or "tours" take multiple days, and consist of several mass-start or time-trial stages ridden consecutively.
Cheltenham Racecourse at Prestbury Park, near Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England, hosts National Hunt horse racing. Its most prestigious meeting is the Cheltenham Festival, held in March, which features several Grade I races including the Cheltenham Gold Cup, Champion Hurdle, Queen Mother Champion Chase, Ryanair Chase and the Stayers' Hurdle.
Cirencester and Tewkesbury was a parliamentary constituency in Gloucestershire which returned one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It was created for the 1918 general election and abolished for the 1997 general election when it was partly replaced by the new constituencies of Cotswold and Tewkesbury.
The Great Bristol Half Marathon is an annual road running event held on the streets of Bristol, UK. The route is at sea level and starts on Anchor Road outside We The Curious. Participants make their way toward Hotwells before heading under the Clifton Suspension Bridge and along the Portway toward Sea Mills before returning the same way then navigating around Cumberland Basin then along Spike Island before crossing Prince Street Bridge, circling Queen Square then heading to Castle Park via St Mary Redcliffe and Temple Circus. The final mile and a half take place in the Old City and Bristol city centre before crossing the finish line back at Anchor Road.
Cirencester Deer Park School is a secondary school with academy status in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, England.
The A4135 road is a road in Gloucestershire, England, connecting the town of Tetbury with the M5 motorway and the A38 road to the west, passing through Beverston, Dursley and Cam en route to Slimbridge.
The 4 Deserts Ultramarathon Series is an annual series of four 250-kilometer (155-mile) races across deserts around the globe. The races were recognized as the world's leading endurance footrace series by TIME magazine in 2009 and 2010, as the "Ultimate test of human endurance". The series was founded by American Mary K Gadams who founded RacingThePlanet in 2002.
The Tetbury branch line was a 7.5-mile (12.1 km) single-track branch railway line that connected Tetbury with the main line at Kemble on the line between Swindon and Gloucester.
Tetbury railway station was the terminus station on the Tetbury branch line, serving the Gloucestershire town of Tetbury.
The Duchy Home Farm is an organic farm operated by the Duchy of Cornwall. The farm is part of the gardens of Highgrove House, the country home of Charles, Prince of Wales. The produce is used as ingredients in Duchy Originals products, sold in vegetable boxes, and wholesaled to supermarkets and restaurants. Prince Charles is credited with using "pioneering agriculture techniques" to produce this organic food.
The 146th Boat Race took place on 25 March 2000. Oxford won the race by three lengths, breaking a seven-year spell of Cambridge dominance. The result was a "shock triumph". The race also featured the joint-tallest ever competitor, and the youngest ever winner in the "modern" race. In the reserve race, Isis beat Goldie by five lengths, and Oxford triumphed in the women's race, emerging with victory in the men's and women's races for the year.
The 119th Boat Race took place on 7 April 1973. Held annually, the Boat Race is a side-by-side rowing race between crews from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge along the River Thames. It was won by Cambridge who passed the finishing post thirteen lengths ahead of Oxford, the largest winning margin since the 1955 race. Despite being pre-race favourites, Oxford's warm-up saw them take on board a large amount of water in rough conditions.
The sack was an English unit of weight or mass used for coal and wool. It has also been used for other commodities by weight, commodities by volume, and for both weight and volume in the United States.
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