The global authority on record breaking achievements Guinness World Records (GWR) has published an online clarification on its official website regarding the controversy surrounding the world record making attempts by Sports Board of Punjab (SBP) during 15-25 February, 2014 in the Punjab Youth Festival.
Various political opponents of Punjab government had alleged that the records made at the PYF were fake and there were no official GWR Adjudicators present at the event.
According to GWR, it did enter into a formal agreement with SBP for the provision of trade mark licensing and record verification services but the GWR Official Adjudicators were not able to travel to the event in Lahore and did not have a representation in Pakistan and so GWR sent its branded merchandise to SBP to be used by the local witnesses selected by the organisers to provide authentication statements and collect all necessary evidence to be sent to GWR Headquarters in London where the record is validated after meeting the GWR criteria.
Moreover, it said that choosing two independent witnesses by organizers in case of no official representation by GWR is mandatory and has been done in the past with other record attempts.
GWR further acknowledged that SBP had followed the procedure correctly and was working with the organisation to ratify their world records attempts.
“SBP has attempted 33 official Guinness World Records titles. The record for LARGEST HUMAN FLAG has been officially approved and we are now waiting to approve the evidence for the other 32 events. We look forward to receiving the evidence from SBP and confirming more official Guinness World Records titles for this event,” added the GWR statement.