First things first.

If you don't know what the Cooper's Hill cheese-rolling race, it's exactly what it sounds like: a group of contenders races a 7-9 lb round of Double Gloucester cheese down a hill.

Spoiler alert: the cheese almost always wins.

A wheel of Double Gloucester cheese traveling down a 200-yard long hill with a 1:2 gradient can reach upwards of 70 miles per hour.

It's fast enough, that it will take a spectator right out if the cheese veers into the crowds.

Of course, getting hit by a speeding cheese isn't the only danger at Cooper's Hill. It turns out a 1:2 gradient isn't great for running down either.

Let's just say the contestants don't always get to the bottom standing up.

In fact, the winner of the ladies' heat, Delaney Irving from Nanaimo, B.C., didn't even make it to the finish line conscious.

Watch her inglorious descent:

Want more spills and thrills?

Here's a video of the whole event:

And if you're just here to see some people flail down a hill, here's a highlight reel from previous years, complete with slow motion flailing:

Authorities have been trying to shut down the event for decades because of all the injuries.

But every time the official event gets called off, the locals organize an unofficial one like in 2011.

Former winner Helen Thorpe said: "No-one's going to stop us doing it.

"They say it's not official but we are all Brockworth people and we're running the cheese today so it is official. We strongly believe in it."

The 2011 men's winner Chris Anderson said,

"It's better with the official because you have got ambulance cover, but this is what it is all about, you have got all the locals here," he said.

"It's a Brockworth tradition and it's keeping it going for the people of Brockworth.

"I had to win, it's in my blood."

The officials did eventually convince them to replace the dangerous cheese with a foam replica by threatening the 84-year-old cheese maker Diana Smart with liability for the races if she kept donating wheels of cheese to throw down the hill.

She said: "It made me feel pretty angry... there's not a lot we can do,"

But again the community just purchased cheese replacements for prizes for the contenders then sent them flailing down the hill.

Honestly, it sounds like as long as there's a hill to flail down and cheese to eat at the bottom, the people of Gloucester are going to keep this centuries-old tradition going.

England needs to stop trying to erase the best parts of its history already.