BELFAST — The Celtic Festival in Belfast this year was full of musical performances and interesting wares (including a booth dedicated to all things kilt), but perhaps the most exciting event came Sunday afternoon: The New World Cheese Roll Championship. While the event, sponsored by the State of Maine Cheese Company in Rockport, harkens back to the 1800s, it is a fairly new phenomenon in Midcoast Maine.

The seventh annual Maine Celtic Celebration was held in downtown Belfast July 19-21 and is billed as the longest running Celtic festivval in Maine. The event is free, relying on donations each year. In addition to the cheese roll championships, the Celtic Celebration hosted the Highland Games, Celtic Breeds Dog Show and the Kilted Canter 5K Road Race.

The Highland Games included the Caber Toss, Open Stone Put, Heavy Weight Throw and Weight Over the Bar competitions.

For the Cheese Roll, participants were organized into five divisions, with men and women competing separately. The divisions included: 5- to 9-year-olds, 10- to 12-year-olds, 13- to 18-year-olds, 19- to 24-year-olds and a 25+ category. The event, which consisted of a up to nine participants racing after a 48-ounce wheel of cheese as it careened down the hill in Belfast Commons toward the bay, was full of tumbles and triumph and the crowd surrounding the event filled every space around the competition area.

After the competition came to an end, the winners from each division posed with their hard-earned prizes — wheels of cheese — hoisted high above their heads.

To reach Erica Thoms, email news@penbaypilot.com.