Pooh Sticks championships draws crowd of hundreds

Hundreds of enthusiastic competitors travelled to a small river in the Oxfordshire countryside in the hope of winning one of the world's most coveted sporting titles - the World Pooh Sticks Champion.

The River Windrush, in Witney, hosted the 33rd World Pooh Sticks Championships on Sunday, with more than 500 sportsmen and women of all ages taking to the bridge to drop their twigs.

Spectators watched the coloured-twigs float along the five metre course from the bridge, near St Mary's, Cogges, and under the rope finish line.

Despite the genteel nature of the Pooh books which gave rise to Pooh sticks, some of the competitors said they were feeling the adrenaline.

Winners of the group stage, The Hundred Acre Edwardes, admitted they did get "a bit nervous" before the race.

The family team, comprising Alexander, five, Fleur, 11, and their father Ben, 40, had to draft in a last-minute replacement before the race in the form of Megan Harrison, 11. Despite not having joined the family during training, she helped the team speed to victory.

However some players were left dejected after getting knocked out of the individual round.

Adam Peart, 35, from Oxford, was competing in his third games and was certain his loss was "a fix" despite 12 months of training. "I think that my stick actually won but the judges just didn't see it," he joked.

Despite his loss, he said he would be back again next year to fulfil his "lifelong ambition" of winning the championships.

The game of Pooh Sticks was described in AA Milne's The House at Pooh Corner, published in 1928. In the book, Winnie the Pooh played the game with his friends - and, once, the group mistook the character Eeyore for a large grey stick.