- Richard Proud (47) becomes new matchstick Eiffel Tower record holder
- Guinness World Records admits it was too tough
- The record for the tallest building remained unbroken for 15 years
A Frenchman who built a 23-foot matchstick Eiffel Tower to win a Guinness World Record has finally realized his dream a day after his bid was rejected for using the wrong kind of matches.
“I’m really happy to approve…I’m happy to admit that we were a little too strict about the type of matches we needed in this endeavor,” Central director Mark McKinley said. Guinness World Records record service.
Their U-turn comes a day after Richard Proud’s plight made headlines around the world.
The model, which the married French city council employee took eight years to create, was rejected because authorities deemed it used “non-commercially available” matchsticks.
But McKinley acknowledged that “Richard’s attempt is officially a really good one.”
Guinness World Records initially rejected the entry because Proud had arranged with the matchstick manufacturer to buy matchsticks without the striking head attached, saving him the trouble of cutting them off.
Proud said he has been on a “rollercoaster of emotions” since his model was rejected.
The replica has 706,000 matches attached to it with 23 kilograms of adhesive and stands 23.6 feet tall.
“For eight years, I always thought I was building the tallest matchstick structure,” Proud said.
Mr Proud said he was “disappointed”, “frustrated” and “not really fair play” when he heard the news that all his hard work would not be considered.
Mr Proud is said to have been devastated when he first heard the news.
A matchstick maverick who usually seems to be very patient has lost his patience on social media.
“Please tell me how 706,900 sticks stuck one by one don’t match up,” he wrote in an outraged post.
“My matchstick tower is still standing and will always be 7.19 meters high.”
Proud, who works in the arts and bridges department of the Challans-Maritimes county council in southwestern France, finally completed the project on December 27, the 100th anniversary of the death of the original tower engineer.
This amazing tower dwarfs the old record holder by Toufik Daher, a Lebanese craftsman who created a 6.53 meter high model of the Eiffel Tower in 2009.
He told Le Parisien that he encountered technical difficulties along the way and had to make “quite complex calculations” to ensure that the tower’s legs supported its weight.
He estimates he has spent 4,200 hours on the project since it began in December 2015.
In an interview with a local television station before his election, Mr Proud’s wife, Sandra, expressed her hope that after more than 20 years of dreaming, he would finally succeed.
“Then I can get my living room back,” she laughed.