World Record attempts:

1 – Worlds Longest Squash Marathon (singles), currently the record stands at 29 hours and 55 minutes. Grant Ward and Michael Sohachevsky plan to take the record to 30 hours and beyond.

2 – Worlds Longest Squash Rally, Guinness World Records approved this as a new record category and is awaiting the claim.  Members of the club will pair up into teams of 2 and compete to set this new world record.

The event will take place at Basingstoke Sports Centre. The 30 hour marathon record attempt will start at 9am on Friday 25^th of November and finish sometime after 3pm on Saturday 26^th of November. The worlds longest rally record attempt will take place on Saturday 26^th from 9am.

Spectators are welcome and for those who can’t make it the entire event will be streamed live for details visit:

 http://basingstokesquashclub.co.uk/watch_squash_world_record_live.aspx

Training & Preparation

Aside from regular court time those participating in the worlds longest rally record attempt don’t require any training, however attempting to play squash non stop for 30 hours is no mean feat and therefore requires a significant amount of training!

Grant and Mike have already been training for over 2 months in preparation for the big day. At least once a week they attend spinning classes for 1 or 2 hours at a time, followed immediately by a few hours on the squash court. As well as playing league and team squash matches, once a week they play at full match pace for 4 hours. At weekends when time permits they train at marathon pace for longer periods and recently broke the 12 hour barrier under the guidelines of the world record attempt.

Grant said that the 12 hour session gave them an insight into what to expect on the day such as the fatigue, time management, food management, blisters, aches & pains. He went on to say that although it is going to be seriously tough and painful they feel confident and excited about breaking the current world record.

The Motivation Behind The Record Attempts 

There are several great reasons behind attempting these records.  It all started a couple of months ago when there was talk of possibly losing 1 of 3 squash courts due to the cost of maintaining them.  The club currently has around 100 members as well as a team in the Berkshire leagues and losing a court would kill the club. Grant Ward the chairman of the club suggested, that attempting these squash world records may be a great way promote the sport, the club and also raise money for some great causes.

The club is aiming to raise £10,000 for charity. Most of us know of someone who has suffered due to cancer and one of the clubs members is being treated for cancer so half money raised will be donated to ‘Cancer Research UK’. The other half will be donated to ‘Basingstoke and Deane Sports Trust’ which is the charity that funds the squash courts at the Basingstoke Sports Centre where the club operates.

For further details or to make a donation go to http://basingstokesquashclub.co.uk/donations.aspx