 BOGOTA: World female face-pulling champion Anne Woods collapsed and had to be taken to hospital - minutes after coming off stage from a championship-winning gurn.
Anne, 62, had just finished pulling faces in a strenuous four-minute performance when she became ill outside the competition room at Egremont Crab Fair, Cumbria.
Champion gurner Tommy Mattinson, who won the men's world title for the 12th time, said: "I came outside to get some fresh air and Anne was lying on the floor. I got help immediately and she was rushed to hospital. Being on stage is physically exerting and it also gets very, very hot. Anne is getting on a bit now, and this won't have helped."
Anne was recovering at home in Egremont yesterday but husband Alex, 64, said: "We didn't know that she had won at that point. She was in the ambulance when we told her how well she had done, she managed to smile wryly. We are still not sure why she collapsed but she does suffer from emphysema and asthma. We think when she was screwing up her features it brought the turn on. We thought it was a stroke at first, but she seems OK now."
Anne first took part in the championships in 1977 after she was entered without being told. She won - and has come either first or second in every event since. Alex, a gurner himself, added: "She is talking about retiring. She's stubborn, but I'm trying to persuade her otherwise." |
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