This is the 14-year-old Chinese teenager who measures well over 7 feet tall and is set to become the tallest male teenager in the world.
According to national newspaper New, the youngster named Xiaoyu, from Leshan City, in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan, reached the height of 221cm (7.25 feet) tall on his 14th birthday on October 18th.
A Red Star journalist, who was asked to be one of the officials who confirmed the boy’s height, reported that the teen was so large that he even needed to have special furniture made including a desk and chair that he could fit in so he could study.
Xiaoyu’s grandmother Wu Mei told Red Star News: “He has grown a lot taller in the past two years”.
In June 2018, when the Red Star News reporter first came to meet Xiaoyu, he was still in the sixth grade of elementary school, when he was only 206 cm (6.59 feet) tall.
In the interview with the Red Star News reporter then, the young boy expressed his wish to challenge the Guinness World Record and become the world’s tallest teen.
In August of this year, Xiaoyu and his family submitted the application for the challenge “Tallest Youth (Male)” in the Guinness Book of World Records on the official Guinness website.
He said: “Since I have entered school, I have noticed that I am taller than the other kids at my age. Many students were mistaking me as a fellow from the senior generation. That did disturb me but I decided to make it something positive by applying to Guinness to see if I could get the world record.
Lu Lei, a Guinness World Records certification officer, later came to Leshan to certify Xiaoyu’s challenge to the title of “Tallest Youth (Male)”.
In addition to Lu Lei, the Guinness World Records certification officer, a doctor from Leshan People’s Hospital called Li Song, and the journalist participated in the measurement and acted as witnesses for the record application.
Lu Lei said: “The challenger must be male and aged between 13-18. At the moment the former holder of the Guinness World Record is over 18 years old.”
But, he added that the comparison was not relevant as the new challenger is much younger.
In order to make sure they had the measurement exactly correct, the officials measured him three times in the morning, at midday and in the evening.
After the measurement certification was completed it was sent to London to be audited at the Guinness headquarters, and once confirmed, Xiaoyu is expecting to become the new world record holder.
Xiaoyu, a 14-year-old boy from Sichuan who is 221 cm tall and challenges the Guinness World Record Xiaoyu, a 14-year-old boy from Sichuan who is 221 cm tall, and an unidentified man
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Story By: Simona Spirkoska, Sub-Editor: Marija Stojkoska, Agency: Newsflash
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