Joy for maker of tallest matchstick Eiffel Tower as record refusal reversed

Richard Plaud, a Frenchman who built a model of the Eiffel Tower using 706,900 matchsticks poses next to the structure measures at 7.19m in this undated photograph taken in Saujon, France, January 7, 2024. Richard Plaud/Handout via REUTERS

PARIS — Guinness World Records on Thursday told Frenchman Richard Plaud that his 7.2-metre (23.6 ft) matchstick Eiffel Tower was a record height, a day after initially rejecting it for using the wrong matches to Plaud’s dismay.

Plaud said he had been on an “emotional rollercoaster” this week, after spending 4,200 hours over eight years on building his model from more than 706,000 matches and 23 kilos of glue.

“For eight years, I’ve always thought that I was building the tallest matchstick structure,” he told Reuters.

However Guinness World Records initially told him he didn’t make the cut as he hadn’t used matches that were “commercially available”.

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Plaud started off by using commercial matches, cutting the head off each. Tired of this tedious process, he asked the manufacturer if he could buy just the wooden sticks without the head, prompting Guinness to refuse his record.

“We’re really excited to be able to approve it (…) we’re happy to be able to admit that we were a little bit too harsh on the type of matches needed in this attempt, and Richard’s attempt truly is officially amazing,” said Mark Mckinley, director of central records services at Guinness World Records.