World record awarded for matchstick Eiffel Tower after decision U-turn
World record awarded for matchstick Eiffel Tower after decision U-turn
A French enthusiast who built the tower was previously told it had not qualified for the record.
So he bribed them more? It's common knowledge that Guinness is bullshit.
I don't know how you got that from the article. It sounds more like someone from Guinness stepped in when they got some bad publicity.
For anyone not paying attention, the rules for this particular record required using commercially available matchsticks but you have to cut the (flammable) tips off. The guy here got bored doing that so he asked a local matchstick manufacturer to send him some boxes without those tips - and they obliged.
8 years later he contacts Guinness and they say "nah mate you need to use commercially available matches, disqualified" almost immediately and some news articles pop up about it.
Guinness eventually caves and says "all right fine we'll allow it" and that's it. No money exchanged hands, if anything Guinness' original decision was probably correct given the rules but here we are.
The whole thing smells a little like a publicity stunt tbh.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
He began building the tower by cutting the red, sulphur tops off commercial matches - but soon realised this would be a long and tedious process.
After contacting the manufacturer, Mr Plaud was sent kilos of plain wooden matches, and carried on building his model.
Mr Plaud, from Montpellier-de-Médillan in western France, completed the tower on 27 December and contacted GWR to authenticate his work.
He was later told it had been rejected as only "commercially available" matches qualified for a record-breaker - but on Thursday, the organisation changed its mind.
Mr Plaud hopes to put his tower on display in Paris for the Olympics in July.
The previous world record was held by Toufic Daher from Lebanon, who built a 6.53m (21ft) Eiffel Tower in 2009.
The original article contains 273 words, the summary contains 127 words. Saved 53%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!