BYUSA President Paul Victor broke the Guinness World Record for longest time spinning a plate on a finger.
Victor said he mostly feels relief having finally broken the record. He had attempted multiple times to break the record but ran into problems including dropping the plate, not having the correct number of witnesses, the camera running out of film and other technical problems. He said it took over two years to practice, attempt the record, fail a few times and keep persevering to finally break the record under the correct circumstances.
On July 10, his fourth official attempt, Victor spun the plate for two hours, 17 minutes and 24 seconds, beating the previous record of two hours and 10 minutes. Victor said he was happy, excited and almost in disbelief that he was officially now a Guinness World Record holder.
To pass the time, Victor and his timekeepers and witnesses watched the Disney movies “Luca” and “Infinity War.”
Victor said the failed attempts helped teach him persistence and that hard work pays off in the end. “That’s just part of the process of breaking records. If it were easy, everybody would do it.”
He has applied to break more world records that involve spinning objects on a finger such as a pillow or cellphone, but said he will most likely take a break from attempting to break world records until next year.
Victor’s world record is the first record to be broken as part of the BYU World Record Club. Cameron Jones is president of the World Record Club and said he hopes this will be the first of several world records broken as the club grows.
To break a Guinness World Record a person first has to apply, then once they are given the green light there are several rules and regulations to follow for the record break to be verified and submitted to the board. There have to be two witnesses and two timekeepers as well as the record breaker in the camera view for the entire duration of the attempt.
Victor had four friends of his with him to be his witnesses and timekeepers, one of which was Jones. Jones himself has broken 13 Guinness World Records and is hoping with this club he can help people get involved in “humanitarian world records” such as donating the most amount of toiletries in 24 hours for example.
“The purpose of the club is to create a community of world record breakers as well as help build the brand of BYU. I feel like if we could get this positive force going of well-meaning records like that, a lot of people would want to get involved and it would be really cool,” Jones said.
