When I was growing up, I was always fascinated by the Guinness Book of World Records. Some of the records, such as tallest man, really could not be attained through any means other than natural. But some the records achieved often enthralled me. For example, Stephen Clarke is the world’s fastest pumpkin carver. In July 2006, he carved a pumpkin in 24.03 seconds. And might I add that his pumpkin looked much better than one that would take me an hour to carve!
Here is another incredible record – Erick Hernandez of Havana, Cuba was able to control a soccer ball by bouncing it 319 times with his head while keeping the ball in the air. Oh, and did I mention that Hernandez was able to do this within a minute? Did you ever wonder about the record for most participants to swim one lap each in a 24-hour swimming relay? That record belongs to 2,889 people in Santa Marida da Feira, Portugal. Did you ever think of trying to break the drumming marathon by an individual? You had better be ready to spend a lot of time with your drum set! Arulanantham Suresh Joachim spent 84 hours drumming in Zurich, Switzerland in 2004.
So what made me look up all these crazy records? I saw today on CNN that the tallest man in the world got married. Bao Xishun, of Beijing, China, is 7 feet 9 inches tall. Xishun was confirmed by Guinness World Records last year to be the tallest living person in the world. Unlike many who have held the title, Xishun doesn’t have the medical condition gigantism, which causes people to grow abnormally tall – he is just naturally tall. You may remember reading a blog written by Michele about him last December. He made the news when he used his long arms to pull plastic out of the stomachs of two dolphins, thus saving their lives. His new wife, Xia Shujian is only two-thirds his height at 5 feet 8 inches.