Harry Kooros and Jake Loiterton visited 99 pubs and bars in Sydney over a 24 hour period, spending AU$1,500 (£784) in the process.
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Kooros and Loiterton, both 26, undertook their epic quest both to raise money for multiple-sclerosis charity MS Australia, and to raise awareness of the challenges faced by Sydney’s nighttime industries, especially since the Covid-19 pandemic, as Kooros explained to Guinness World Records: “We wanted to try to reignite the spark in a declining piece of what makes Sydney so great.”
While they had initially planned to have an alcoholic drink at every other pub, concern over being too inebriated (and Sydney’s laws surrounding public intoxication) prevailed.
Beginning at midnight, they undertook arguably the most challenging stretch first as it proved difficult to find venues that were open that late.
Another difficult that arose early on was the challenge of ingesting so many drinks, even though many of them were non-alcoholic. Just two hours in, Kooros vomited, and it was noted that the constant toilet breaks became a factor in slowing down their progress.
“Jake was much better at holding down the large amount of liquid we needed to, so he wasn’t too fazed by fizzy drinks,” Kooros explained. “I, on the other hand, struggled a lot with fizzy drinks, so tried to have juices where I could.”
From 5am to 9am, the pair waited for the pubs to reopen before recommencing their journey.
A further difficulty they had was that their cameras (filming is a requirement for many Guinness World Records) meant that some bars would not let them in.
While they smashed the previous record of 78 pubs, set by South African Heinrich de Villiers, they fell short of their target of 100 pubs due to a counting error.
All in all, they spent an average of 14 minutes at each spot, and walked some 45 kilometres over the course of the day – almost 3km longer than the distance of a marathon.
“There was a decent amount of fatigue the Sunday after, but it was all great fun and we made some great memories with friends,” Kooros shared. “On top of this, it was great to be able to raise some money for a great charity in MS Australia.”
This isn’t the only drinks-related Guinness World Record to be set recently – Aristotelis Valaoritis, a 62-year-old security advisor from Cyprus, smashed the previous record for balancing wine glasses.
This article originally appeared on the drinks business.
