- Sofia Ferreira Santos
- BBC news
image source, Richard Proud/Reuters
It took Richard Proud 4,200 hours to build a model of the Eiffel Tower.
A model of the Eiffel Tower has been officially named the world's tallest matchstick structure, a day after it was removed from the Guinness Book of World Records (GWR).
The 7.19-metre (23-foot) tall tower was disqualified on Wednesday for being made of the wrong type of match.
GWR on Thursday congratulated model enthusiast Richard Proud on his record, saying it had been too tough at first.
Mr Proud, 47, said this week had been a “rollercoaster of emotions”.
It took Mr Proud eight years to build the model, which is made from 706,900 matches and 23kg of glue.
He began construction of the tower by cutting the tops of red sulfur from commercially available matches, but soon realized that this was a long and tedious process.
After contacting the manufacturer, Proud sent several kilograms of plain wood matches and continued building the model.
Mr Proud, from Montpellier-de-Médienne in western France, completed the tower on December 27 and contacted GWR to certify his work.
It was then reportedly rejected because only “commercial” matches were eligible for record-breaking, but on Thursday the organization changed its mind.
Mark McKinley of Guinness World Records said the organization was “really thrilled to be recognized.”
“I'm happy to admit that we were a little too harsh on the type of matches needed for this attempt. Richard's attempt is truly outstanding,” he added.
Proud hopes to display his tower in Paris in time for the Olympics in July.
The previous world record was held by Toufik Daher of Lebanon, who built the 6.53-meter (21-foot) Eiffel Tower in 2009.
