With a population of 2,116,581 Vancouver, surrounded by water and mountains easily beats the last Winter Olympics host city Turin Italy by over 1 million people. The Vancouver games of the XXI Winter Olympiad run from February 12-28, 2110.

This city which rests on the Pacific west coast of Canada in the beautiful Province of British Columbia was originally settled by coastal Indians around 500 B.C. Residents are known as Vancouverites and it is the birthplace of one of largest environmental organisations named Greenpeace.

At fifty-five years hold Ashrita is showing no signs of slowing down with age, this wonder kid currently holds 114 Guinness World Records. On his most recent trip away at the Hotel Caribe in Cartagena Columbia Ashrita set a new Guinness record for blowing a postage stamp 100 meters in the fastest time of 7 minutes 29 seconds. As with many of his records Ashrita likes to include a little twist to make the record setting even more unique and memorable so he did this whilst carrying “Pepe” a Colombian tree sloth. By all accounts “Pepe” had a good ride and wasn’t fazed by the occasion at all.

“So, I am always looking for new ideas for world records. Sometimes, I’ll go through the Guinness Book and some record will jump out at me. Often, I’ll return to an earlier record which someone else had subsequently broken. And sometimes, an incident in everyday life will give me an idea for a new record that has never been attempted before. Enter the lunge!”

To read about the rest of his fascinating attempt visit www.ashrita.com/blog/its-lungetime

Ashrita Furman from Queens New York currently holds 92 Guinness World Records.

In this American network television exclusive, Ashrita talks about his life, his relationship with Sri Chinmoy and how he contracted the ‘Guinness bug’ from an early age. A self proclaimed High School nerd, Ashrita dramatically transformed his life into the pursuit of one thing, happiness. And it is in this pursuit that he has traveled the globe and achieved some of the most remarkable Guinness World Records ever seen.

More about Ashrita

• Ashrita Furman’s website

It is a fascinating interview about the event, its founder Sri Chinmoy and the relationship between spirituality and physical fitness.  This is a national radio show and covers the entire country. Thank you to Bryan and his producer Robyn Walker for this great opportunity.

15th November 2009

Multiple Guinness Records smashed in one day at Impossibility Challenger

A frenzy of record-breaking took place at the 16th Impossibility Challenger, with 11 Guinness and 7 world records broken.

The event was held on 14 November 2009 in Auckland’s Trusts Stadium in New Zealand, the first time it has ever occurred outside of Europe.

Swiss weightlifter Albert Walter set two Guinness world records for ripping a 1440 page phone book in 6:83 seconds and breaking a 30cm long, 9.5mm wide carpenter’s nail in 3.24 minutes, both with his bare hands.

Alastair Galpin, one of the most prolific Guinness record breakers in the world, set nine new Guinness records in the same day, including the most high-fives in a minute and the furthest distance spitting a ping pong ball.

Four employees of New Zealand tyre company Frank Allen Tyres smashed the world record for the fastest 4 wheel tyre change on a car, reducing it from 2 min 30 sec to 1 min 25 sec.

20 people constructed a 270.3 metre balloon chain in one hour, beating the previous world record of 216 metres.

Plenty of new world records were set including the fastest mile pushing someone in a supermarket trolley (8 min 14 sec), the furthest distance travelled by a balloon powered car, the tallest hat made from balloons (3 metres 20 centimetres) and the world’s largest dot to dot drawing (10 metres square)

The Impossibility Challenger was founded in 1982 by the accomplished weightlifter and runner Sri Chinmoy (1931-2007) to promote self-transcendence, the ideal of challenging limits and going beyond previous accomplishments.

Media Contact: Budhsamudra Knox
Phone: 64 9 629 1556
Fax: 64 9 309 3439
Mobile: 64 021 853 125
Email: info@impossibilitychallenger.com
Website: www.impossibilitychallenger.com

Licking 57 stamps in one minute or wearing 62 rubber bands on your head isn’t everybody’s idea of fun.

But serial world record breaker Alastair Galpin has done both and has the paperwork to prove it. The 35-year-old is the second biggest Guinness World Record breaker of the decade.

He will try to add a few more titles to his ever-growing haul when he takes part in the Impossibility-Challenger at Henderson’s Trusts Stadium on Saturday from 9am to 4pm.

It is the first time such an event has been held in New Zealand and the aim is for entrants to break as many Guinness records as they can in one day.

Those attending include Switzerland’s Albert Walter who can rip phone books apart faster than anyone else on the globe.

But anybody is welcome to have a crack at whatever weird and wonderful record takes their fancy. Previous efforts include the fastest mile on stilts, the most hours playing the cello and the world record for continuous laughter.

Galpin won’t reveal exactly what he has planned but spectators will be in for quite a show if his record-breaking past is anything to go by.

He has, for example, pulled on 20 underpants in one minute, hugged 624 people in an hour, worn 74 socks and spent more than nine hours shaking someone’s hand.

His record attempts tend to be silly rather than dangerous but Galpin has also successfully tackled more physically demanding tasks.

Several weeks spent hanging on the end of a crane in a portable toilet is the toughest thing he has ever done.

“I was in there for 21 days,” he says. “From a psychological point of view it definitely had a bit of an effect. I think if you packed up anyone in a little toilet for three weeks they’d come out a little different.”

Galpin does not just do it to get his name in the history books.

His goal is to use his record-breaking abilities to create awareness about causes close to his heart.

“Now that we’ve built up a bit of a profile, my objective is to use these things to draw attention to conservation issues in the Third World.

“I was thinking small when I started and just did little things locally. I could hardly walk up to the BBC or National Geographic and say: ‘I’ve never broken a record but I want to promote climate change.’ But we’re starting to get that interest now.”

Galpin plans to keep pushing the limits of his body until it fails to respond.

“I still hope to be breaking records when I’m all knobbly-kneed, highly-whiskered and can hardly walk any more.

“It’s best to die doing something you love.”

This is a great video from Dachau, the Munich Impossibility Challenger that took place on 30th March 2008.

It shows a talented field of 20 athletes from 10 countries setting 17 World Records and 11 Personal Records. This video features footage of Mr. Guinness Ashrita Furman from the USA, who currently holds the most Guinness World Records in the world attempting to run the fastest mile on stilts.