Fastest time to complete the World Coal Carrying Championship race (female)

The fastest woman to compete in the World Coal Carrying Championships is Catherine Foley (UK), who finished the course at the 2011 event in Gawthorpe, West Yorkshire, in 4 minutes 25 seconds.

Foley, a police-training instructor from Batley in West Yorkshire, won the women's race - which involves lugging a 20-kg (44-lb) sack of coal across more than a kilometre through the streets of Gawthorpe - at the 48th annual coal-carrying championship. “I’m delighted," she told reporters. "I really pushed it at the climb and that’s where I pulled away from the lady in second place.” The women's category was first contested in 1966. The annual race (founded 1963) is contested from the Royal Oak pub to the maypole on the village green, an uphill distance of 1,013.38 m (3,325 ft or 0.63 miles).