New champion crowned at Clitheroe Clog Dancing festival in successful 2026 event

Elizabeth French lifted the coveted Lancashire and Cheshire Championship Hornpipe Belt at the Clitheroe Clog Dancing festival, defeating the back-to-back champion in 2024 and 2025 Nickie Dailly, who finished as a runner-up. Robynne Wood, of the Lancashire Wallopers, who organises the festival admitted that French’s participation in the event “came out of nowhere”.

“We didn't even know she was going to compete at all, we found out the afternoon before that she was intended to compete,” Wood said when expressing her disbelief. “That was really exciting, very disappointing to the current title holder because she was on her second win and was hoping to win her third, which would have meant that she would have been retired from competition, be a champion permanently and get a replica belt, but sometimes that's just how this goes, it's what happens on the day,” she added.

The 2026 edition of the event marked the 49th anniversary of the competition, and victory for Dailly would have placed her in rare company as the 11th three-peat winner, but it’s been quite common for back-to-back winners, according to Wood. However, even winning the festival back-to-back is a difficult task in its own regard.

The Clitheroe festival has four judges covering all of the competitions in the event, including the championship round. The four judges mark different elements of the dance. One focuses on style and technique, another one that focuses on timing, in terms of how well did the dancer concentrate on the music, and the third is the judge’s beat, which focuses on whether the beat was as strong as it should be, and then the fourth judge judges interest and variety. The judges then give the dancer a mark out of 20 plus marks for performance, giving the dancers a maximum possible score of 100.

For the performers who have secured their third-win, which includes Wood, who emerged victorious in 2019, 2022, 2023, it means they’re no longer able to compete for the championship as retirees are given a replica belt, but they can remain involved by helping put on the event.

“For the people that were there on the day, four of us were three times Lancashire and Cheshire clog dancing champions,” she explained. “Chas won three times in the 80s, and Harry, won three times in the 90s, and Ruth, who was adding up the scores and helping me, and she won in the early 2010s, three times, and then me, I did my third win in 2023, so the Wallopers have always supported the competitions. When we've competed and come out the other end, then we've quite often taken a role in the competitions to help them move forward,” Wood added.