40 Extreme Sports Records That Might Not Ever Get Broken
Want to know who the oldest person is to ever climb Mount Everest? Or which golfer has bagged the most holes in one? How about the dog that’s surfed the farthest? If you’re itching to find out, read on, because we’ve dug out some of the most incredible, impressive, and downright bizarre achievements that you’re ever likely to come across…
1. Deepest free dive
First, let's get one thing straight: when we're talking about free diving, we don’t mean going to the depths of the ocean in a submarine. Nor are we talking about diving with a scuba kit. We mean holding your breath and swimming downwards with nothing more than fins to propel you. In August 2022 Frenchman Arnaud Jerald swam down to an astonishing depth of nearly 394 feet — and back — without mechanical aids in three minutes and 34 seconds. Wow!
2. Heaviest plane dragged by a person
“Why is there a record for dragging a plane?” you might well ask. But since many of the records on our list raise a similar question, we’ll go with, "Why not?" It was a Canadian called Kevin Fast who got his 15 minutes of fame by taking this record. In 2009 he hauled a 416,299-pound CC-177 Globemaster III plane just short of 29 feet, which still stands as the world record.
3. Oldest person to climb Mount Everest
Nowadays, climbing Mount Everest seems to be little more than everyday tourism. Between the first recorded ascent of the world’s highest peak in 1953 and the end of 2021, more than 6,000 scaled the summit, so it’s hardly the rare feat it once was. But we’ll still tip our hat to Japan’s Yuichiro Miura, who reached the summit in 2013 at the age of 80 years and 223 days, the oldest mountaineer ever to do so. Kudos!
4. Heaviest weight lifted by a human tongue
It’s a versatile thing, the human tongue. Eating, talking, and French-kissing are just some of the various tasks this muscular organ can handle. To be honest, though, not that many people think of their tongues as a body part suitable for heavy lifting. But try telling that to Britain’s Thomas Blackthorne: he secured his place in the record books in February 2022 by raising a weight of nearly 29 pounds using only his tongue. Yikes!
