Watching ordinary people achieve extraordinary things has been the single most powerful source of inspiration for Chris Sheedy, a 16-year veteran of Guinness World Records. He now moves on from GWR, but here below he recounts his favourite moments…
 
In Canberra, Australia’s capital city, David Richards and his wife Janean attracted international attention when they decorated their home with almost half a million Christmas lights. A few called them crazy. Some wondered about their motivation. Most admired their spirit. Their drive came from something simple, pure and elegant. A few years ago, you see, they lost a child. They were gradually brought out of a dark and tragic place by a charity known as ‘SIDS and Kids’. This annual Christmas event, the Richards’ gloriously colourful festival of light, was their way of showing their gratitude by raising money for the charity that brought them back into the light.
 
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David and Janean are ordinary people doing extraordinary things. And what of other record breakers? In November this year, on Guinness World Records Day, Glenn Coxon will attempt to break his own record for most boards broken in 60 seconds. I was there when he first smashed the record almost ten years ago. Why come back for another attempt? Because last year he overcame cancer. He has never felt more alive. This immensely taxing record attempt will be a celebration of his survival.
 
The first time I met Derek Boyer, Australia’s strongest man and holder of several Guinness World Records, he was harnessed to the front end of a 52-tonne semi-trailer, attempting to pull it along the road using only brute strength. That day the truck didn’t budge, but when we met again several months later he pulled the monstrous vehicle over 100 feet of level ground. Derek became a Type 1 diabetic way back in 1995 but it only spurred him on to train harder – six days a week.
 
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Derek was partly inspired by the feats of David Huxley, another strongman with a flair for showmanship. David was also harnessed to a vehicle – a Boeing 747 –  the first time I met him. It’s just one of the many planes he has pulled along runways, including a 737, a 767 and a British Airways Concorde. “Basically I ran with it,” David grinned as he told me, referring to the Concorde. “I got it up to eight miles an hour at one stage.”
 
And so my last 16 years with Guinness World Records adjudicating in the Australia region particularly, has been filled with such experiences, of watching humans demonstrate just how amazing, powerful, inventive, caring, strong, supportive, determined, loving, co-operative and daring they can be. There was the time I stood on the landing ramp as Robbie Maddison landed the world’s longest motorcycle jump.
 
 
There was the ride around the night-time streets of London on the world’s fastest furniture – a three-seater lounge chair that did 140 km/hr. There was the surprisingly touching and emotional world’s highest wedding on an aircraft 41,000 feet above the North Island of New Zealand. That day after work I had to find my way home from Fiji…
 


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It is the record breakers that have fascinated and inspired me. Whether I’m in SCUBA gear watching Chayne Hultgren swallow swords underwater, holding my breath on dry land as Anthony Kelly catches arrows being fired from just metres away, gasping as Skye Broberg folds her bendy body into ever-smaller boxes, or on a beach counting bikini-clad women, the stories behind the records have always been the real attraction for me.
 
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And now I hand the clipboard onwards to another lucky soul, so they can continue the work Guinness World Records has done for over 60  years. I leave knowing we are enriched by this brand. “Why do you love Guinness World Records so much?”, I have often been asked. My answer is always the same. Guinness World Records celebrates the pure and innocent imagination of children. Rather than reacting with cynicism, it reacts with wonder. Rather than considering one type of achievement as better, or cooler, than another, it instead respects them equally. And rather than asking, ‘Why would you bother doing that?’, it instead says, ‘You, my friend, are a legend!’.
 
Ordinary people will always do extraordinary things, and Guinness World Records will always be there to recognise them when they do. Only then will they know they are Officially Amazing!
 
GWR has new adjudicators for the Australian region
 
To book an adjudicator in Australia please contact Jessica.Rae@guinnessworldrecords.com
For record applications please visit www.guinnessworldrecords.com/set-a-record
For press queries from Australia please contact press@guinnessworldrecords.com