A Frenchman who spent eight years building a 7.19-metre tall matchstick model of the Eiffel Tower is celebrating after Guinness World Records recognised his work with a world record, reversing an earlier decision that had left the creator disappointed.
The Guinness World Records previously rejected the work of Richard Plaud, a 47-year-old man from a small town in western France, over the type of matchstick used to construct the model.
But yesterday, it officially certified that Mr Plaud's matchstick Eiffel tower is the tallest of its kind.
"It's an emotional rollercoaster, I mean, for eight years, I've always thought that I was building the tallest matchstick structure," he said.
"And at the end of these eight years, the initial decision made by the Guinness Book (of World Records), I found it too strict, cruel, and I felt it was incomprehensible."
"I'm on top of my tower tonight," he said from his home in Montpellier-de-Medillan.
He spent 4,200 hours over eight years to construct his model - built from more than 706,000 matches and 23 kilos of glue - of the famous iconic Parisian landmark. He glued on the final model's match on 27 December, 2023, the 100th anniversary of the tower's architect Gustave Eiffel.
Mr Plaud then put it on display and contacted the Guinness Book of World Record, confident he was going to overtake the previous record, held since 2009 by Lebanese Toufic Daher for his 6.53-metre matchstick Eiffel Tower.
The record was initially rejected by Guinness who said only "commercially available" matches should be used for models.
Mr Plaud initially used commercial matches and cut off the sulphur part one by one. But tired of the tedious process, he eventually contacted the manufacturer directly to order only the wooden sticks without the sulphur - a detail that led Guinness to reject the record claim.
But Mark McKinley, Guinness' director of records services, said the body was initially too "heavy-handed" with the criteria requirements for Mr Plaud’s model, but that they were happy to award him the record in the end.
"Eight years of toil to get to where he was, it's incredible, absolutely incredible," Mr McKinley told Reuters.
"Like I say, 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."
