Fresh back from the Kerio Valley in Kenya Gregory Knudson talks us through what you need to do to set a world record
Greg Knudson in Kerio Valley, January 2014. Photo: Felix Woelk
A year ago, after breaking a world record for a speed over an out-and-return course of 100 kilometres, friends threatened to run out and buy the Guinness Book of World Records.
Disappointment followed as I explained that my achievement would never be found in a book next to the guy with 9.85 metre-long fingernails. Mention the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), and you’ll be met with blank stares (though this happens when I mention the word paragliding sometimes too).
Nevertheless, since 1905, the FAI has been officially responsible for rigorously recording all milestones of aerospace achievement (some 16,000 of them). And though my humble effort pales in comparison to Charles Lindberg’s, or Yuri Gagarin’s, it is still a source of immense satisfaction to know our names share the same ledger and that I too have contributed in some small way to pushing back the frontiers of what is possible.
Why then, when we think about competition, are FAI records the last thing to come to mind? Have we been so conditioned to equate the term ‘world record’ with the near impossible that we dismiss it as beyond the scope of ordinary humans like ourselves?
The fact is, in our sport, you don’t have to be Superman (or the Bionic Woman) to break a world record, and unlike Felix Baumgartner, you don’t have to step off a balloon-platform 39km above earth either.
Yes, there have been some impressive records (especially, in the distance categories), but what if I were to tell you there are still records out there that are just begging to be broken (mine included)? In fact, there are even some official records that have never been set at all…
The full article is inside Cross Country 152 (March / April 2014).
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