Why the Frenchman Who Assembled the Eiffel Tower from 700,000 Matches Was Denied a Record: Here's How the Story Ended
Richard Plo, an employee of one of the French municipalities, spent eight years creating a replica of the Eiffel Tower from 706,900 matches.
Having started his project in December 2015, he completed it in December 2023, the centenary of the death of Gustave Eiffel, the architect of the original structure.
The height of the tower created by Plo was 7.19 meters, which is 67 cm higher than the previous Guinness record.
Plo's childhood dream was to set a Guinness World Record, but his application was rejected without even considering the project. According to the committee, his creation was made using the "wrong" matches.
It turns out that the “building material” had to meet several criteria at once: the lists had to be sold in a regular store, not have a flammable sulfur tip, and not be altered beyond recognition (cut, disassembled, or deformed).
According to Plo, he began building the tower using regular matches bought at the supermarket. However, the process of manually removing the red sulfur tips from each match was tedious.
That's why he decided to contact the main French match manufacturer and negotiated the purchase of a batch of matches that had not yet been tipped with sulphur heads. As a result, he received boxes of wooden matchsticks weighing a total of 15 kg.
Plo posted a scathing message on social media, expressing his "massive disappointment."
Guinness World Records responded to the publication and said that after studying the case they had concluded that the rules were too strict.
Later, Mark McKinley, director of the Central Records Service, confirmed that Plo's record had been recognised and congratulated him "on being awarded the title by Guinness World Records."
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