Guinness denies treadmill world record citing lack of independent witnesses
"Unfortunately, the witness recording the majority of Amy's progress was not independent of her," Guinness says
Back in September, Amy Hughes ran 838K in seven days to break the existing world record for distance run on a treadmill in a one-week span. More than half a year later, Guinness is saying no to the record attempt because her boyfriend was the witness.
“Amy submitted the evidence to Guinness World Records for verification however she was refused as one of the independent witnesses was someone related to her however there were many that were not,” an explanation reads on a petition aimed at getting Guinness to reverse the decision.
“With 24 hours live footage, videos recording all the key milestones asked for, 1000s of witnesses in a public environment, an hourly log of mileage, breaks and sleep time-it’s still not enough,” she wrote on Facebook on July 25.
Guinness requires that two independent witnesses be present during a world record attempt. Hughes’ boyfriend did not count, per the Guinness decision, as an independent witness. In September, Hughes, who in 2014 completed 53 marathons in 53 days, ran on a treadmill that was set up, according to the Mirror, at Manchester’s Trafford Centre in the UK.
A statement from Guinness, specifying that the decision was “related to the recording of the distances,” can be found below.
Hi Rowena – it was specifically related to the recording of the distances. Here's a statement from our records team
^Dan pic.twitter.com/1CJnWZO4iP— Guinness World Records (@GWR) July 27, 2017
“But I’ll keep going, keep pushing and keep trying to get what’s fair and if all else fails I’ll make my own certificate,” Hughes wrote on Facebook on July 28 after the BBC published an interview with the runner.
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