Originally published at: Guinness World Records refuses to recognize youngster's record-breaking gymnastic hang - Boing Boing
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Um…I’m ok with this. I really don’t want a rash of parents having their kid do a bunch of potentially risky shit just to get a completely pointless World Record. There are already too many parents exploiting their kids for social media clout. Now, if the parents told the Guinness folks to begin with that their daughter was a child, and Guinness neglected to tell them she wasn’t eligible, they have a legitimate gripe about that, but that still shouldn’t let her get the record.
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“Are you under 16? Set a World Record this christmas!”
Plenty of dangerous fun in there like jumping over people in roller skates, littluns in go karts, etc.
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The 7 year old setting the record for fastest limbo skating under 20 cars looks far, far more dangerous than dead hanging.
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So they’re hypocrites. Big shocker. I still don’t like it.
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… this comes to mind as the canonical example
After Jessica accumulated just 33 hours in the air, Lloyd and Lisa came up with a plan to make her a star. Lisa initially broached the idea of having Jessica set the record as the youngest transcontinental pilot, and Lloyd was all on board. The plan was that Jessica would fly cross country with Joe and Lloyd, and make a name for herself as a record holder.
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Exactly. Most of the “records” in it are dumb, and many of them are potentially harmful. Parents already push their children to do really dumb things for attention. More of that is not needed.
In India there’s an insanely stupid thing of “limbo skating” where parents push their children to develop the ability to skate under cars. Why? It’s just stupid and can’t be healthy for the joints and bones. Such nonsense shouldn’t be promoted.
Edit: just saw that aluchko had exactly the same thought I did on this.
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Yeah, there’s enough legal abuse of kids already - sports leagues, gymnastics, beauty contests, …
Nobody wants to see some kid beat in order to achieve some bs record in anything.
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That might explain why I’m sensitive to this, now that you mention it. I played T-Ball when I was 5. My team went undefeated, and we were city champs that year. That didn’t stop our coach from ripping us a new one after one particular game because we didn’t beat the other team as badly as he thought we should have. Again, we were 5, and this was T-Ball.
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Totally on-board with all the previous comments about not publishing records for children.
I’d also like to know their definition of “dead hang”.
There are two variants.
In one variant you must be hanging from both arms with the weight evenly distributed. The problem with this is that our blood circulation system doesn’t cope well with us having both arms extended straight upwards for any significant length of time, and the hands start running low on oxygen. I am seriously concerned about anyone doing this dead hang for 35 minutes.
The second variant just requires you to be hanging using only hands, so no hanging from elbows, flipping upside down to hang by your legs, etc. This lets you hang from one arm while resting the other. It lets you wipe the sweat off your free hand. It also means you can use the free hand to scratch the annoying itch on your nose, eat a sandwich your support team passes to you, and perhaps deal with toiletry requirements. Someone who climbs regularly has enough grip strength that hanging from one hand isn’t harder than hanging from two, provided you get to swap hands whenever you like. The limiting factor is probably how long they can stay awake.
Given the existing record was only 11 minutes, I suspect they are using the first variant.
I never got to play organized baseball because the only coach in our little town was an abusive asshole and my dad wasn’t going to allow him to treat me that way. I’m still pissed that a petty tyrant could ruin it for me forever. And our town used to hold the under-11 Little League World Series divisional playoffs, to which we were allowed an automatic entry. I could have been a legend!
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Not that this in any way invalidates your point about Guiness World Records being a meaningless bullshit scam, but there’s no way in hell that kid’s still going to be able to hang from monkey bars that long when she’s 18. Definitely a category where 45-pound children have a significant edge.
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Uh but the “longest legs” girl is only 17, a literal child. Get your s together, Guinness.
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To be fair, it’s not like Maci Currin had to do anything silly or dangerous to attain that record. All she had to do was grow, which is basically what teenagers do.
I watched “The coolest people I know” force their child to learn to break dance. Let the child’s joints fully form first…
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