Much Wenlock Olympian games take place this weekend

Photo by Sabine J Hutchinson
http://www.virtual-shropshire.co.uk

The Shropshire Star reports:

Shropshire will create its own sporting stars this weekend when the county plays host to the 123rd Wenlock Olympian games.

The games - which were founded by Dr William Penny Brookes in Much Wenlock in 1850 and are widely regarded as the forerunner to the modern Olympics - have attracted more than 1,250 entries from athletes from as far afield as Norway.

This year also marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Penny Brookes who originally launched the games to “promote the moral, physical and intellectual improvement” of Much Wenlock residents.

The four-day event will start tomorrow and run until Monday.

Happily, the Wenlock games are bound to get more publicity in the run up to London 2012.

And this gives me an excuse to point you to an article I wrote about them in the New Statesman last summer.

Full details on the Wenlock Olympian Society website.