A LONG-RUNNING tradition was upheld when the 41st World Coal Carrying Championships were staged.

The championships - at Gawthorpe, near Ossett, yesterday - attract competitors from all over Yorkshire every Easter Monday.

Thirty men and 30 women ran the 1,108yd uphill route from the Royal Oak at Ossett to the maypole in the village of Gawthorpe.

The men carried sacks of coal weighing 50kg and women had 20kg bags.

Competitors included Dewsbury policeman Sgt Graham Hawcroft, 35, who was raising money for cancer research at Sheffield's Weston Park Hospital.

The men's event was won by Scarborough builder John Hunter, 40, for the seventh time in 14 years.

His time was 4min 28 sec.

The men's record of 4min 6sec is still held by David Jones, of Meltham.

The women's event was won by 35-year-old Viki Gibson, of Northampton, who stepped in to make up the numbers just five minutes before the race.

Officials had feared there would be too few women runners to proceed.

Viki's time was 5min 42sec. The women's record is 5min 4sec.

The event began in 1963, when two men drinking in the Beehive Inn at Gawthorpe challenged each other.