UK snowboarder Calum Paton has 50-50’d for 255.9 feet on a special rail built in a proped up refrigerator the Sno!Zone Milton Keynes. And for the he was awarded a Guinness Book of World Record for the “longest rail ever ridden on a snowboard.” The sad news is he didn’t make it to the end of the rail. For all the details (and a four-times too long video), follow the jump.
LONDON, UK – British snowboarder Calum Paton has set a new world record for the longest rail ever ridden on a snowboard, riding a frankly ridiculous 78 metres down a specially-built rail to smash the previous world-best by more than 10 metres!
The achievement, watched and adjudicated by official observers from the Guinness Book of World Records, came during a Rail Jam session organised by Whitelines Snowboard Magazine, EA Sports’ snowboard game SSX and Sno!Zone. A specially-constructed 91.5 metre long rail had been installed in the Sno!Zone Milton Keynes Indoor Slope. Whitelines invited snowboarders from across the UK to try and break the previous record – an impressive 67.9 metre slide achieved on an indoor slope in Madrid by Alejandro Benito in 2009.
Calum’s record-breaking trick, a 50-50 came in the most dramatic of circumstances. The UK’s finest rail riders had been trying for about five hours, without getting very far. It was 11.30 at night, and it was looking unlikely that anyone would surpass Benito’s record. Then, in the final ten minutes of the session, just as the Guinness representatives were about to pack up and head home, Calum locked onto the rail and sailed past the previous marker and into the record books. He said: “I’m so stoked, I wasn’t expecting to do it at all! It feels so surreal that I actually hold a world record.”
Ed Blomfield, editor of Whitelines, said: “We’re so stoked Calum broke the record! It’s great both for him and for British snowboarding as a whole. We knew that with our thriving indoor scene the UK had some world-class rail riders, and this gave us a great opportunity to prove that. Thanks to everyone who helped make it happen, and nice one Calum!”
Damian Doyle from Sno!Zone, who had overseen the construction and installation of the rail, was himself a previous record holder – with a slide of 39 metres that had only been beaten by Benito in 2009. He said: “I’m so happy Calum broke the record, it’s amazing to be able to bring it back to the UK.”
Tristan Kennedy, deputy editor of Whitelines, said: “It was amazing Calum broke the record, and in such dramatic style too! In the last few minutes of a five-hour session, just when everyone had given up all hope of it being broken, he locked onto the rail and just sailed past the previous record marker. Everyone went wild! He didn’t just break it, he smashed it by more than 10 metres. What a kid.”
