From feats of endurance and athleticism to the downright strange, these are Australia's Guinness World Record holders
By Gary Nunn
Posted 3h ago
Australia's world record holders include an Olympic gymnast, a martial arts expert, and a woman who shoots the bow and arrow with her feet.(Supplied: Olivia Vivian/Anthony Kelly/Guinness World Records)
Ever since she was 12, lifelong passionate swimmer Fiona Cullinane wanted to swim the English channel between Britain and France.
So it was with a real sense of accomplishment that in 2022, at age 20, she achieved her long-held dream.
Post feat, a fellow swimmer asked if she'd accompany him to swim the North Channel — from Northern Ireland to Scotland — a month later. She agreed, cancelling her booked flight back to Perth, where she lives.
What happened next was completely unexpected.
"As I finished the 147-kilometre swim in Portpatrick, Scotland, I climbed onto the boat, and this woman said: 'Fiona, congratulations! You've just broken the world record'," Cullinane says.
A swimmer stands on a boat with a towel wrapped around her as a person kneels talking to her
Fiona Cullinane unexpectedly broke the world record for youngest female to swim the North Channel in 2022.(Supplied: Guinness World Records)
"I didn't even know there was a record to break!"
In shock, and panting from her 10-hour-and-4-minute-long swim, Cullinane drew a rectangle with her fingers, indicating a certificate. The wordless gesticulation was a question. "To check I'd heard her right," she says.
She had. Cullinane had just become the world record holder for the youngest female to ever swim the North Channel, aged 20 years and 253 days. The previous record holder, a Scot who later direct-messaged Cullinane on Facebook to congratulate her, had held the global title for 25 years.
"I'm always emotional after a long swim," Cullinane says. "But this was next level. I burst into tears, and was just bawling."
Less than a year of glory
For 11 months, until August 2023, Cullinane sat amongst a small group of extraordinary, diverse and, in some cases, incredibly talented Australians: Guinness World Record (GWR) holders.
A woman wearing SPEEDO branded swimsuit with goggles on her swimming cap smiles on a beach
Fiona Cullinane held her record for 11 months.(Supplied: Guinness World Records)
Unlike Cullinane, many will have their eyes firmly set on the prize, and will prepare for years to break that record.
Just under a year into her title, Cullinane heard rumbles of challengers.
"I had a feeling it was coming," she says. "It was actually quite exciting watching it unfold on social media. Two girls were both going for it, almost like a race. It has returned to the home country now — an Irish girl holds it."
The fact that Cullinane's record was broken so quickly after her predecessor held it for a quarter of a century shows that the act of record breaking itself is on the up.
In 2023, Guinness World Records received 40,455 applications for record attempts; a 4.8 per cent increase from 2022, when it received 38,584 applications.
Not every record makes the edited, hallowed book itself, which includes the wackiest and most impressive highlights.
Meet Australia's world record holders likely to make the 2025 book
What drives people in their desire to, at times, put their safety at risk and their lives on hold, to get their name in that famous book?
A combination of factors are at play: bragging rights, human endeavour, eccentricity, 15 minutes of fame, or to simply prove to ourselves that we're still alive, worthy of achievement and can even be the world-best in a field, no matter how niche, narrow or quirky.
Australia's current record holders span all such categories.
They include remarkable feats of human athleticism and endurance, such as the highest altitude catch of an American football (221.89m) broken by Brendan Fevola in Melbourne, September 2022. Or most aerial silk front saltos — drops that rotate forward like somersaults — in one minute (25), achieved by Celeste Dixon in Adelaide, September 2022. Or most "mega walls" climbed in one minute (seven), achieved by Australian Ben Polson in January 2023.
These sit alongside more novelty records held by humans and, in one case, an Australian dog. The tallest stack of hats worn at once (107.5cm) was set by Anthony Kelly in Armidale in May 2022. Stanley the dog holds the world record for most consecutive items caught by a dog (27). Stanley got his certificate in September 2022 in Dederang, Victoria.
Traversing both the quirkily unusual and the impressively contortionist is the Gold Coast's Shannen Jones, who holds the world record for ****hest arrow shot using feet (18.27m), which really has to be seen to be believed.
A woman bent over with her legs above her head uses her feet to shoot a bow and arrow
Gold Coast woman Shannen Jones holds the world record for ****hest arrow shot using feet, at 18.27 metres.(Supplied: Guinness World Records)
Craig Glenday, Guinness World Records' editor-in-chief, tells the ABC that a strong theme of sports and endurance emerges from Australia's 2024/25 record-breaker applications.
"This differs from general categories like fastest or most in a minute," he says.
Records can only include one superlative (fastest run), and not multiple superlatives (fastest run by tallest woman).
Australia punches above its weight. In the 2024 edition, 83 records were from Australia, in line with populations triple our size such as Germany and France.
'Guinness World Records asked me to do it'
Olivia Vivian, 34, from Perth, is in 2024's book for most consecutive flying bar jumps (female). She performed 28 of them on a TV show in Milan in February 2023.
Vivian now holds four records, including furthest monkey bars travelled in one minute and in three minutes, which she broke earlier — having been invited to do so.
Given her profile as an Olympian gymnast who competed at the Beijing Games, GWR actually reached out and asked her to have a crack.
A muscular woman in white top and orange shorts grips onto a long stick as she navigates an obstacle course
Guinness World Records approached Olivia Vivian to see if she would be interested in attempting some records suited to her skills as an elite gymnast.(Supplied: Olivia Vivian)
"It was during COVID and I got the impression GWR wanted people to start breaking records again," she says.
"They said, do you want to try breaking these ones? As I was in Fortress Perth, which had few COVID cases, it was an easier place to get the appropriate witnesses to my attempt, who filmed continuously from multiple angles."
Whilst Vivian enthusiastically agreed — it was a "childhood dream" to be in that exciting book — another challenge awaited her on the day of her attempt: Perth's 42-degree heat.
A woman leaps through the air to grab a red horizontal bar, grinning widely
Olivia Vivian now holds four Guinness World Records, including most consecutive flying bar jumps (female). (Supplied: Guinness World Records)
Initially she travelled 65 metres on the monkey bars in 60 seconds, breaking the one-minute record. But trouble lay ahead for her three-minute record attempt.
"I started feeling the skin separate from the flesh on my hand in the heat as the metal monkey bars were scorching," she says.
Nevertheless she persisted — and also broke the three minute record.
"I did have to wait until my hands healed before I tried the three-minute attempt," she says.
That night was her brother's 30th birthday. Vivian turned up in a cocktail dress with red tape on her scalded hands.
"Everyone asked what'd happened," she says. "I told them about breaking world records that day and my brother said, laughing, 'Liv, you couldn't let me have one day about me, could you!'"
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