2:30 p.m.  LIBERAL, Kan. (AP) — An English runner won the 65th annual Shrove Tuesday pancake race, again beating the winner of the southwest Kansas leg of the race.

The Leader and Times reports  20-year-old Devon Byrne, of Olney, England, covered the 415-yard course in a record time of 55.61 seconds. Byrne beat 25-year-old Summer Parsons, who won the leg of the race in Liberal, Kan., six hours later with a time of 63.5 seconds. It was Byrnes’ third win in a row.

Byrne’s mother, Leslie Byrne, also was a three-time winner of the competition in which Olney and Liberal women in aprons and head scarves run the course with a pancake in a pan.

Olney has won the race 28 times, and Liberal has 36 wins.

 

7 a.m. LIBERAL, Kan. (AP) — It’s time for the annual race that pits pancake-flipping women in Liberal, Kan., against women in Olney, England.

Nine Kansas women are expected to race Tuesday against 25 women in England in the 65th running of the International Pancake Day Race.

The Wichita Eagle reports (http://bit.ly/1g7aAtT ) Liberal street crews were out Monday night removing about 2 inches of snow from the ground in preparation for the race.

The race started in Olney in 1445. Legend has it a woman who was late to church ran to services while flipping pancakes in her skillet. Liberal challenged Olney to a friendly competition in 1950.

The race is part of a four-day festival in Liberal, which leads the competition with 36 wins to Olney’s 27. One year’s score was disqualified.