My First Guinness World Record

I wasn’t part of it but I was there when it was set (Victoria, BC, Canada, March 9). The record was for the world’s largest rowing class.

The class was led by Adam Kreek, a 2008 Olympic gold medal-winning rower (men’s eight). He initially knew he had to break a record of 165 set in 2008 by a class of students on rowing machines in Amsterdam, Netherlands. However, that record was broken on Jan. 27 with 191 and this added drama to the event.  “There has been an addition of drama to the event,” the co-organizer Eric Pittman* said. “A Swiss group just broke the record on Jan. 27 with 191. We just found that out on March 3, and it’s a good thing we found  out.”

219 is the new word record.*He knows a thing or two about world records. In 2007, Pittman thumbed through the Guinness World Records and found “a silly one I knew I could achieve to help publicize my book.” It took Pittman six months, but he learned to scuba dive and, up until 2009, he held the record for the largest under water press conference. “I saw that I only needed 21. I though surely I could get that. We ended up being 61 people under the water at Ogden Point.”  (from http://www.vicnews.com/news/141646063.html)