A South African man has skipped his way into the Guinness World Record book.
SD Heijns broke the eight-hour Guinness World skipping record by doing over 71 000 skips.
Heijns, who started skipping at 12 years old as part of his kickboxing training and now skips for up to eight hours a week, made the successful attempt at Sun International’s Maslow Time Square Hotel in Pretoria on Friday.
The 21-year-old was ecstatic and said: “There are no words for how I felt, I wanted to show that South Africa has talent too and bring this record here.
“The longest I had skipped prior to this attempt was six hours, and this was the hardest part of today’s record attempt.
“My best hour was my last hour, when I did more skips than the first hour,” Heijns said.
He averaged around 9000 skips per hour.
A pressure plate system mat counted the number of skips – 71 185 in total, and two skipping ropes were used.
Heijns said he started out too fast but soon found a better pace that saw him smash the previous record of 70 031 by 1 154 skips, held by Sella Rosa Rega from New York, USA.
“Skipping formed an integral part of my personal training regime to stay fit during the Covid-19 lockdown and this is when I started toying with the idea of breaking the Guinness World Record,” Heijns said.
The attempt was registered with the Guinness World Record body and monitored by the Sports Science Lab for verification purposes.
Guinness must still declare it an official record.