Eiffel Tower sets Guinness World Record for tallest matchstick building
Guinness World Record had previously rejected the model for being made out of wrong type of matches
February 10, 2024
A 7.19 metre Eiffel Tower model has been officially deemed the world's tallest matchstick building, after being disqualified by Guinness World Records a day earlier, the BBC reported.
Earlier this week, the tower had been disqualified for being made out of the wrong type of matches. However, a day after its rejection, GWR said that it was too harsh at first and congratulated model enthusiast Richard Plaud on his record.
Plaud, 47, said this week had been an "emotional rollercoaster".
It took him eight years to construct his masterpiece tower using 706,900 matches and 23kg of glue. He initially cut red, sulphur tops off commercial matches, but realised it was a tedious process.
After contacting the manufacturer, he received kilos of plain wooden matches and continued building the model.
Plaud, who is from Montpellier-de-Médillan in western France, completed the tower on December 27th and contacted GWR to authenticate his work which was rejected because only "commercially available" matches qualified for a record-breaker.
However, the organisation has since changed its stance.
Mark Mckinley from Guinness World Records said the organisation was "really excited to be able to approve it".
"We're happy to be able to admit that we were a little bit too harsh on the type of matches needed in this attempt, and Richard's attempt truly is officially amazing," he added.
Plaud hopes to put his tower on display in Paris for the Olympics in July.
The previous world record was held by Toufic Daher from Lebanon, who built a 6.53 metre Eiffel Tower in 2009.
