Olympic boxer who was told he'd never punch again breaks record by landing 147,000 hits
Olympic boxer Tony Jeffries (UK) had to give up the career he loved after injuries saw him told “you’ll never punch again”.
Defying the odds, he’s now broken the Guinness World Records title for most full extension punches in 24 hours with an unbelievable total of 147,218.
That's an average of 1.7 punches a second!
“I started boxing when I was 10 years old,” the 40-year-old told us.
“I won seven national titles, I won a European gold medal and at the age of 23, I won an Olympic bronze medal for Great Britain.”
Then his world came crashing down.
“I got told that I could never punch ever again.
“I damaged both of my hands. I had a hole in one knuckle, a big tear in the other tendon.
“I had surgery on both hands, but my hands didn’t recover.
“It was then that I went down a bit of a dark spiral in life.”
Fighting back, and never one to let the world beat him down, the dad-of-three took on this mammoth challenge at Gym Nation in Motorcity, Dubai on 3 March.
Tony, who won bronze at the 2008 Olympic Games, admits he collected Guinness World Records books when he was a kid, but never imagined he’d earn the chance to appear within its pages one day.
He said: “I couldn’t wait to look inside them and see all of the extraordinary achievements by all of these extraordinary people.
“Fast forward 30-plus years, right now, my children are doing the exact same thing.
“I want to show my children that with hard work, dedication and the right mindset, we also can do extraordinary things.”
The proud dad-of-three, who live-streamed his attempt, said this record was the “perfect” fit for him.
After working his way back from his injury, he was above target after the first hour with 6,000 punches complete.
After hours five and six, Tony, who hails from Sunderland, says he didn’t know where his energy was coming from.
But it was a very different story by the time he passed the 12th hour.
He said: “When it got to hour 12, that’s when reality kicked in. How am I going to get through this for another 12 hours?
“Hour 13 was a really tough hour but then hour 14 felt good, hour 15 felt good, and I was back on track.”
Wife Sarah had to give him a reality check at hour 19, when he thought he’d been going for 21, and by the time he did reach that mark, his shoulders were burning every time he threw a punch.
Explaining how he found the strength to carry on, Tony said: “My daughter, before I started this record, she created this little badge for me and we stuck it on the bag.
“I remember at this point, when my shoulders were burning, I could see this while I was punching and it really made me think about why I’m doing this.
“I thought about my three young daughters and that really did help me push through that burning sensation and get through hour 22, 23, until we got to hour 24.
“And it was here that I achieved something pretty extraordinary.”
Tony set himself the goal of completing 84,600 punches, the equivalent of one every second.
He managed 147,218 – equivalent to 1.7 punches a second for 24 hours.
Concluding with wise words, he said: “We as human beings can do what we put our minds to and this is what I’m telling my kids now - what I remember my mam told me - ‘If you want to do things that no one else has done, you’ve got to do things that no one else does’.”