Nigerians Who Have Recently Won Guinness World Records. - Tunde Onakoya

Tunde Onakoya set a new 60-hour Guinness World Record for the longest marathon chess at the Times Square, New York.

The 29-year-old played chess for 60 hours, from Wednesday, April 17 to 20, surpassing the current chess marathon record of 56 hours, nine minutes and 37 seconds, achieved in 2018 by Norwegians Halyard Haug Flatebo and Sjur Ferkingstad. Tunde embarked on his marathon session hoping to raise $1m for underprivileged children’s education across Africa through the record attempt.

At 3am last night on Friday, that was the moment I was ready to just give it all up but Nigerians traveled from all over the world. And they were with me overnight. We were singing together and they were dancing together and I couldn’t just give up on them. “I can’t process a lot of the emotions I feel right now. I don’t have the right words for them. But I know we did something truly remarkable,” Onakoya told the AFP.

The 29-year-old played against Shawn Martinez, an American chess champion, in line with Guinness World Records guidelines that any attempt to break the record must be made by two players who would play continuously for the entire duration. For every hour of game played, Onakoya and his opponent got only five minutes’ break. Reacting to Onakoya’s achievement, Nigerian President Bola Tinubu in a statement said, “setting a new world chess record and sounding the gong of Nigeria’s resilience, self-belief, and ingenuity.

“You have shown a streak customary among Nigeria’s youth population, the audacity to make good change happen… even from corners of disadvantage.” Meanwhile, The Guinness World Records organization has yet to publicly comment about Onakoya’s attempt. It sometimes takes weeks for the organization to confirm any new record..