New Zealand should embrace cheese rolling and quirky sports - Glenn Dwight

The great Kiwi cheese roll could take on a whole new meaning in the New Zealand Cheese Cup, Glenn Dwight writes. Photo / Unsplash, Geronimo Poppino

Somewhere between the Super Rugby semis, a Warriors injury crisis, back-to-back golf tournaments, and yet another F1 drive-around in circles, a small but mighty sporting headline quietly rolled past.

Byron Smith, a great New Zealander as Sir Richard would say, just hurled himself down a near-vertical slope chasing a runaway wheel of cheese ... and won.

The event? The annual Cooper’s Hill Cheese Rolling Race in the UK.

The prize? Glory, bruises, and some very soft cheese.

And it got me thinking—we’ve got cheese, we’ve got hills, we’ve even got cheese rolls.

So why, as a nation, are we not jumping headfirst into this sport already?

A quick Google search shows me that the last Whitestone New Zealand cheese rolling championships happened on a farm in Waikaka in 2010.

Surely it’s time we resurrected this once-great sport?

Honestly, what are we doing spending millions on a boat that doesn’t even sail in our waters?

We’ve got equestrians with horses that get physio and wear more bling than your Aunty Sheryl on Cup Day.

And fencers—yes, fencers—duelling with pointy sticks while the rest of us are out there pulling number 8 wire through bogs in sideways rain, doing real fencing (sorry to any stick ballet competitors).

So let’s forget the America’s Cup with its handbag-dog energy and “my keel is bigger than yours,” and welcome in the New Zealand Cheese Cup.

Because the Cheese Cup is New Zealand’s Cup.

Picture it: Fonterra-branded wheels lined up on a windswept hilltop.

Local mayors in hi-vis, ready to blow the starter whistle.

Contestants in stubbies and redbands, stretching quads that haven’t been used since the Hillcrest High “Gold” 15.

Wheels released. Bodies flying. A dozen rolled ankles.

One proud champ hoisting a vintage wheel of Mainland Tasty as the local brass youth band belts out the anthem slightly off-key.

Even the mental picture brings a tear. (Bloody dust in my eye.)

This should be our Olympic moment. Our sporting glory.

And cheese rolling is just the beginning.

Let’s get on a small-sport roll and dominate—like we do in Speight’s beer bottle top trivia.

There’s a whole world of obscure sports ripe for Kiwi conquest.

Take bog snorkelling—exactly what it sounds like.

Kiwis racing through muddy trenches in snorkels and flippers.

We’ve already got the gear.

Just dig out that snorkel set you bought for the family holiday to Rarotonga in 2004 and head down to the boggy field behind the woolshed after the herd’s been through.

Then there’s wife-carrying—or, in these enlightened times, “spouse transportation”.

A Finnish invention involving obstacle courses and a piggybacked partner.

Anyone who’s lugged a sheep across a flooded paddock while holding a half-eaten pie is already an elite athlete.

Extreme ironing is a real thing—people pressing shirts on mountaintops, underwater, even mid-parachute.

We’ve been doing that for years.

It’s called getting the kids ready for school photos when the power’s out, the jug won’t boil, and the dog’s charging around the house like a Spanish bull that’s just seen red.

And toe wrestling?

Sounds like something dreamt up after too many lemonades.

But mark my words—we’ll find a County Hall in Taihape and turn it into the Madison Square Garden of metatarsal combat.

Cue the training montage: a barefoot bloke running up the local hall steps while Eye of the Tiger blares from a dusty boombox.

Not quite the Philadelphia Museum of Art, but still powerful motivation for a nation.

As Kiwis, we’re always told we punch above our weight.

Maybe it’s time we stopped punching... and started dominating the world’s smallest sports like Derek, the high school bully.

Picture the Halberg Awards filled with humble heroes from Hokitika and Mataura—grass-stained, slightly concussed, and world champions of Cheese Rolling, Toe Wrestling, Bog Snorkelling, and Partner Transportation.

This is our future, New Zealand.

It’s time we became the BIG CHEESE in sport.