NEW YORK, NY – Ashrita Furman, a New York City resident, has become the first person to simultaneously hold 100 titles in the Guinness Book of World Records!
Furman earned the 100th simultaneous record by holding a poetry reading in New York’s City Hall Park, where a group of people read “Precious” by Sri Chinmoy in 111 languages.
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“It was fun learning about many of these languages — quite a few I never even heard of,” said Furman, who chose Zulu as his language for reading the poem. Furman recruited more than 100 New York friends to recite the poem in their language, beating Hong Kong’s International Social Service who five months ago presented a text in 79 languages.
Furman, 54, has earned over 230 Guinness records in total, but many have since been broken. Furman made his first entry into the Book 30 years ago, by doing 27 000 jumping jacks within 5 hours.
“As a kid I was always fascinated by the Guinness Book of World Records. But I was very unathletic and I never thought I could,” Furman said.
He said taking up meditation helped him find the inner strength to perform feats including eating 38 M&Ms with chopsticks in one minute earlier this year.
“I believe we all have an inner strength that we very rarely use,” Furman said. “I just love the challenge of trying to be the best in the world in something.”
Some records Furman has broken include:
- Somersaulting 12 miles 390 yards continuously
- Pogo stick-jumping up 1899 steps of CN Tower, Canada, in 57 min 51secs
- Most underwater rope jumps in one hour: 900 jumps
- Largest weight of milk crates balanced on chin: 93lbs 7oz
- Most grapes caught in the mouth in one minute: 77
- Fastest lemon peeling and eating: 10.97secs
- Most eggs crushed with own head in 30secs: 53
- Most whole garlic cloves eaten in one minute: 13
- Mile hula hooping: 11min 29sec
- Balancing tallest pole on chin: 54.6ft
He will be remembered for years to come.