Tumbling for cheese at Belfast’s Maine Celtic Celebration Cheese Roll Championship

BANGOR, Maine (WABI) – The Maine Celtic Celebration Cheese Roll Championship took place Sunday at 2 p.m. in Belfast.

The championship featured age group rounds ranging from young children to people over 60-years-old.

Each cheese roll championship is made up of 10 contestants lined up at the top of the hill. The cheese championship begins with a selected official rolling a cheese wheel down the hill. The goal of each contestant is to run down the wheel first. The contestant who comes up with the cheese, usually out of pile, wins! If there are more than ten contestants, contestants must race up the hill and the first ten to find an open chair positioned in the hill moves on to the cheese roll chasing.

The winners of the cheese roll championships were each awarded with the cheese wheel they ran down, and a box of artisan cheeses.

Two young cheese champions spoke about what was going through their minds as they were chasing the cheese.

“It feels amazing. 13–17-year-old boys champion Brady Winslow said. “I was just running after the cheese, I saw someone drop the cheese, and I went, ‘ok’, and I dived right for it.”

“CHEESE, CHEESE, CHEESE!” 8–12-year-old girls champion Scarlett Wagner said.

The Maine Celtic Celebration is run entirely by volunteer staff. The cheese roll championships always draw an enthusiastic crowd.

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