19 photos from the Gawthorpe World Coal Carrying Championships 2023 on its 60th anniversary

More than 100 competitors descended on Gawthorpe for the event’s 60th anniversary on Monday, despite the pouring rain, with men, women and children all taking part.

Men carried a 50kg sack of coal on their backs and women lugged 20kg across a 1,000-metre distance.

An original pigeon racing clock and volunteers’ stopwatches were used to record times.

The coal races are run over an uphill course for most of the way. The final hill is known as “Benny Harrop Hill”.

The topography of the course ends in being a vertical height gain of 14 metres, or 46ft, from the start of the course to the finish.

The winner is the first person to drop their sack of coal onto the finish line on the village's Maypole Green.

Fastest man was Andrew Corrigan clocking in at four minutes and 29 seconds and Catherine Fenton was the quickest woman at four minutes and 40 seconds.