The World Poohsticks Championship was held on the bridge near Sandford Lock on the River Thames today.

At 11 am, Tigger was bouncing with excitement, wanting to see the first pooh sticks dropped into the gentle current. The championship involved a series of heats. Participants leaned over the bridges edge, prepared to release their different coloured sticks. Then at a signal, they dropped the sticks upstream of the bridge and crossed to see whose stick emerged downstream and crossed the finishing line first.

Umpires from the Abingdon Rotary Club, who organised the event, watched the finishing line like owls.

At about 1 am, Tigger could not contain his excitement as just two players were left in the final, waiting to drop their sticks.

The red stick finished a few lengths ahead of the blue stick.

The red stick’s handler was congratulated as the World Poohsticks Champion for 2023. He is Bertie S (age 9).

The next world championship is a year away but that does not stop people playing the game at any time, whatever your age, just as Pooh Bear played it with with Christopher Robin, Tigger, and Eeyore.

The annual World Poohsticks Championships was previously held at Day’s Lock on the River Thames from 1984 to 2018. There has been a gap of four years with no competition because of lack of resources and then Covid. This was the first time at Sandford Lock. It has moved from downstream to upstream of Abingdon.