International school attempts Guinness World Record

19th November 2009

Students, friends, family and teachers from the Almancil-based International School São Lourenço (ISSL) attempted to smash the Guinness World Record for human dominoes at the Algarve Stadium on Guinness World Records Day, November 12.

Organisers say 244 people participated, beating the previous record of 121 people, but at the time the Algarve Resident went to press on Wednesday, all of the video evidence and documentation had yet to be sent to the Guinness organisers for verification.

Attempting to set a new Guinness World Record for human dominoes at the Algarve Stadium on November 12.

Simon Wragg, a father of a student at ISSL, said: “I had the idea of attempting to break a Guinness World Record as a fundraising event for the school and as the human dominoes has been attempted recently, I thought, why not?”

Once the idea was decided upon, a fast-track application for the attempt was made to the Guinness World Records.

“We received a list of guidelines and instructions on how to properly make an attempt on an existing record,” said Simon Wragg.

Headmaster Terry McGuire.

“As we couldn’t pay for an official adjudicator to come, we will have to send off a lot of information, including a log book of participants, video footage and official witness statements to have the record verified.”

The mattresses for the attempt were supplied on the day by Portuguese mattress company Colunex.

Carla Meira, commercial director of Colunex said: “Our company is always pleased to take part in large events and charitable causes, so when we were asked to help set a Guinness World Record, we immediately said yes.”

She added that the 244 mattresses used by participants at the Algarve stadium were made especially for the event and will be returned to the Colunex factory afterwards.

Following the record attempt, ISSL head teacher, Terry McGuire, who was the first human domino, told the Algarve Resident: “I think we smashed the world record.

“It is absolutely fantastic that the whole school community has been involved in this event.”

All the necessary documents and evidence were being collected and notarised ready to be sent for ISSL to receive official confirmation of whether a new record has been set.

Students raised funds for the school through sponsorship to take part in the event, although the total amount raised has not yet been announced.

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