Samar Yahya Saudi Gazette JEDDAH — The Challenge Fair, held in Jeddah and Dhahran, concluded Friday with 21 participants achieving 21 new Guinness World Record titles in Saudi Arabia. Seven females bagged the record: four at the Mall of Arabia here and three at the Mall of Dhahran. Yasmeen Al-Suhemi won two world records over the weekend at the Mall of Dhahran. The fair had put up challenges like arranging movie titles in alphabetical order, sorting 30 colored balls using one hand, among others.
“The level of interest in the Guinness World Records challenge fair has been fantastic. “At each city we've visited there has been great excitement among people ready to try their hand at record-breaking,” said Tom Ibison form Guinness World Records. Ibson added that he witnessed a huge number of talented people during the Guinness World Records challenge fair in Saudi Arabia. As a record adjudicator, Ibson is always amazed by the passion, commitment and determination that people show in order to break a Guinness World Records title. He saw the same qualities within the contestants in Saudi Arabia this time.
Guinness World Records is pleased to have hosted Challenge Fairs all around the world. Their most recent events were held in London, Kuwait City and Tokyo. Guinness World Record offers free-of-charge service for anyone wishing to attempt a Guinness World Records title – wherever they are in the world. It encourages fans or people who think they've got a unique talent to go on the Guinness World Records website and fill an application, which are personally assessed by experts team of Records Managers. If they like the sound of an application, they'll provide the Record Guidelines and details of what is required to set a new world record. Then what all people have to do is get practicing and hopefully they can earn their place in the record books. In the past five years Guinness World Record has seen an increase in record applications by 400 percent from across the Middle East region.
In response to this the Guinness World Records opened its dedicated Middle East office earlier this year with the aim of making it easier for businesses and people to access and achieve world records. Regional director, Talal Omar, is now witnessing more record attempts from the region than ever before. For instance, the fastest time to type the Arabic alphabet on an iPad being achieved in just 8.53 seconds and the record for Most flip flops held in one hand in one minute now standing at 22. While record challenges may, at first, appear a little peculiar the skills of the challengers transform them into amazing Guinness World Records achievements. At a Guinness World Records Challenge Fair, the aim is to provide a range of varied record challenges that appeal to all visitors. The record challenges at the Arabian Centers Challenge Fair were selected to complement each other and give visitors an exciting, engaging record-breaking experience. Guinness World Records received estimated 10,000 visitors attended during the Challenge Fair. Over the past five years, Saudi Arabia has been awarded 50 Guinness World Records titles. There are 42 current Guinness World Records titles held by Saudi Arabia. The public interest and attendance at every event has been excellent. At each event there have been crowds of people enjoying the fair, taking part in challenges and watching the talented few make their official attempts on stage. Commenting on the temperature of Jeddah, Ibson said that Jeddah does not actually hold the world record for the hottest place on earth; that record is held by Death Valley in California. “Coming from the UK this is certainly much hotter than I am used to.”
