The Oldest Sporting Trophy

This question is fraught with pitfalls.

Wikipedia describes the America's Cup as "the oldest international sporting trophy", and I'm quite happy to accept this description – with emphasis on the word "international". But the question asked for "the oldest continually contested trophy in sport" (no mention of the word "international").

I'm not even sure what's meant by "continually contested". When I tried googling "the oldest continually contested trophy in sport", top of the list was answers.com, which describes the America's Cup as "the oldest trophy in international sport and ... the oldest trophy continuously awarded in sport" but doesn't say what it means by this.

The first time I was asked, in a quiz, what was the world's oldest sporting trophy, the answer was "Doggett's Coat and Badge". And whenever this question is asked, someone will always give this answer. The Coat and Badge dates back to 1715, and according to Wikipedia it's been held every year since; that sounds pretty continuous to me.

But there are older trophies.

SportsGoogly.com lists the "Top 10 Oldest Sports Trophies in the World". The America's Cup is No. 4; "the World’s longest established and oldest recorded sporting event", according to this site, is the Scorton Silver Arrow – contested since 1673 in the village of Scorton, North Yorkshire. In this competition, "participants shoot at four-foot (122 cm) five–color face, targets at a range of 100 yards. The winner is the first person to hit the three–inch black spot at the center. The winner is appointed Captain of the Arrow. The first person to hit the red zone is appointed Lieutenant of the Arrow. The winner is presented with a replica of the original silver arrow, which he keeps for a year. The original silver arrow is held at the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds."

A report in the Daily Mirror, dated 28 June 2017, goes one better. It says that the oldest sporting trophy still contested anywhere in the world today is (or are) the Carlisle Bells, which are awarded to the winner of a horse race held at Carlisle, known as the Carlisle Bell. This was first contested in the year 1599; the bells themselves date back to 1559. They are a non–matching pair of what I would describe as bells similar to those worn by some morris dancers, but about twice the size.

Funtrivia.com names the America's Cup as "the oldest sports trophy". It provides a link to something called "Googleism", which includes a snippet that says "america's cup is the oldest trophy continuously awarded in sport". This is suspiciously similar wording to the MaccQL question, but frustratingly Googleism doesn't provide links to any of its snippets so there is no way of checking the source.

In Macclesfield Quiz League we are allowed to check answers online in the event of a dispute. But I don't think this would have helped here; I've given four possible answers, and each has a claim depending on how you word the question.

Maybe it all hangs on those enigmatic words: "continuously contested". But as the setter didn't explain what he or she meant by them, we may never be able to adjudicate on what is the best answer to this question and it was surely not fair to expect question masters to do so on the night. I would suggest that of my four candidates, the America's Cup has the weakest claim.