What do you get if you combine awareness for the plight of Palestine, an Ethiopian man who lives in Cape Town, a marathon in Berlin, and the luck of the Irish?

One of the world’s weirdest Guinness World Records.

Kamil Suleiman recently dressed up like a leprechaun and ran the BMW Berlin Marathon, with an official from Guinness World Records waiting at the finish line to decide whether or not he’d make it into the history books.

HeraldLIVE with more:

The record Suleiman set just a week ago was for completing the fastest marathon ever… by someone wearing a leprechaun outfit.

Dressed in all green with his beard dyed red, Suleiman crossed the finish line of the Berlin Marathon on September 29 in a time of 2:58.01 – just under two minutes shy of three hours.

The record is official, with the Guinness World Record website stating: “The fastest marathon dressed as a leprechaun (male) is 2 hrs 58 min 01 sec, and was achieved by Kamil Suleiman (South Africa) at the BMW Berlin Marathon, in Berlin, Germany, on September 29 2019. Kamil was wearing a full leprechaun costume with the beard coloured in red.”

Suleiman had the following to say about his world record:

“I attempted the same record last year in London, and missed it by 15 seconds. This year I went and took my revenge and beat the record by 89 seconds, to be exact,” he said.

Suleiman is no stranger to marathon running. He’s completed races before at under three hours.

Of his race plan, he said: “I didn’t want to start fast and get drained. I didn’t want to be over ambitious, although I trained very hard. My first half [of the race] was in one hour and 29 minutes; the second half was faster by nearly a minute. I started fast and finished.”

Suleiman did it all to raise awareness for “the Palestine cause”, referring to ongoing tensions between Palestine and Israel.

“I describe myself as an Ethiopian by birth, a South African by residence and a Palestinian by heart,” said Suleiman, who has lived in South Africa for close to 16 years.

He said he chose the leprechaun because of its “mischievous” connotations, without it being offensive.

“The nice part is that if you follow the news and stuff, the Irish people – other than South Africans, who support Palestine because of the apartheid legacy – really support Palestine,” he said.

The overall winner of the race was Kenyan Eliud Kipchoga, but without the added style of a leprechaun outfit.

If you’d like to read about more bizarre records, like the fastest arrow shot using feet, go here.

It’s a weird and wonderful world out there.

[source:heraldlive]