Stitches, broken ribs and 92 teammates: What it really takes to get a Guinness World Record
These American all-stars are world-class wonders who willed themselves into the history of human — and canine — achievement.
A teen roller-skating phenom, water-skiing team and a basketball-dunking dog are among the apex US athletes in the brand-new “Guinness World Records 2024,” which includes 2,638 feats from nearly 30,000 applicants.
Three of the record-breaking Americans revealed to The Post how dedication, fate and a little push from their families helped guide them to their piece of history. Here’s a closer look at some of the 2024 inductees:
Mia Rae Peterson
Record: Most people barani-flipped over from a quarter pipe on roller skates
This California 16-year-old rolled her way right into the record books — even if it took 27 stitches and a couple of broken ribs to get there.
Peterson, of Laguna Beach, started roller-skating just five years ago while letting loose at her sister’s birthday soirée.
“For her birthday party, she wanted everyone to go to the rink,” Peterson told The Post. “After that, I got a pair of skates and I just really started getting into it.”
She now skates up to 15 hours per week and says it took several months to master jumping over a dozen people while doing a barani flip — incorporating a front somersault with a mid-air 180-degree twist.
“One time I split my chin and had to get 27 stitches. Also, when I first attempted a front flip I over-rotated and slammed on to my stomach, breaking some of my ribs,” she told Guinness.
Her mom, Sarah, was one of the first people willing to let Peterson practice jumping over her.
Peterson pulled off her record-setting feat in July 2022, skating and flipping over 12 helmet-clad friends from a quarter-pipe at Orange County’s Laguna Niguel Skate Park.
Now a high-school junior, she’s been taking extra classes to graduate early and is mulling Pepperdine or Brigham Young University as her next stop. But she’s not looking to become a skating pro.
“I just really do skating for fun, I’ve always done it for the serotonin it gives me,” she said. “And I love progressing and working hard for things, but every single time I go to the skate park, I just want to have fun.”
Leonard Lee the border collie
Record: Dunking 18 basketballs in 60 seconds
When dog trainer Teresa Hanula, who runs A Dog’s World Dog Training & Pet Care in Fairfax, Virginia, adopted border collie Leonard Lee, she had big ambitions in mind — even if she didn’t exactly know what they were yet.
“I grew up knowing about Guinness and when I first got him as a puppy, I said: ‘I want him to have a world record,’” Hanula recalled. “And his breeder was thinking, ‘That’s a high order.'”
One of the first things she noticed was that her pooch, now 5 years old, had taken a liking to a homemade wooden basketball hoop. She decided to teach him how to shoot a mini plush ball into it — and that’s when Leonard’s calling revealed itself.
“The ball fell and he went right back and he shot it again,” Hanula said. Leonard had dunked.
While treats fueled him at first, Leonard soon started hooping without being enticed by rewards, Hanula said. The newfound skill soon took the basketball-obsessed border collie to New York City as part of Guiness’ “Record Breaker Week” on “Live with Kelly and Ryan.”
Leonard was invited to show off his talent last September on the show and ended up dunking 18 balls in 60 seconds — and setting a world record. (His previous best was 14 in a minute.)
Leonard want to play ball constantly and hopes to keep boosting his dunk record, but also practices walking while balancing books on his head in hopes of getting into Guinness again. The current record is 20, Hanula said.
“He loves it,” Hanula said of basketball. “So, why not go with something he’s already good at?”
Mercury Marine Pyramid Team
Record: Largest human water-skiing pyramid foundation
Kevin Ostermeier needed a little help to set his world record — 92 other daredevil water skiiers, to be exact.
The 30-year-old, who has been water-skiing since he was 8 years old, wrangled athletes from several amateur stunt teams around the Janesville, Wisconsin, area to break their own record he largest human water-skiing pyramid formation in September 2022. (The group had previously set the record with 70 people back in 2018.)
Their first five attempts ended in failure.
“Most of our issues came while starting, getting off the dock and getting everyone’s timing to work out,” Ostermeier, who previously ran a chemical manufacturing company outside Chicago, told The Post. “So, if we lost too many people off the dock, we would pull the throttles and kind of reset, which took almost an hour each time.”
The team hoped to get 100 skiers linked together, but all those precarious tow ropes and an unpredictable wake sent some men and women into the water.
Stacked in six four-tier pyramids, 93 of them were finally able to travel 656 feet on the Rock River before balancing became impossible for the top-tier skiers, who started to drop.
But Ostermeier isn’t giving up on 100.
“Yeah, we’ll be back at this,” Ostermeier said. “We’ll attempt this again, probably for 2025. I want to get into the triple digits.”
