Williams College may have bested Keene State College in a rugby match held this weekend, but every player won the title of Guinness World Record holder for participating in the longest women’s rugby match ever played, according to the Berkshire Eagle.
The game started at 8 A.M. Saturday morning and lasted 24 hours, 5 minutes and fifteen seconds – nearly 18 times longer than a regular game, which lasts 80 minutes. Williams reigned with 818 points, beating Keene State with a 107 point margin.
The 44 players played in shifts, taking breaks every other hour to nap, eat and try to stay dry during the rainy day, reports iBerkshires.com.
Williams’ women’s rugby head coach Gina Coleman told the Eagle that this year, the two teams decided to try to raise money for cancer research through their match – and that she thought an attempt to break the world record would help them do so: “When we first talked about it during the New England Rugby Football Union meeting in December, I thought we could raise a lot more money if we were going to set a Guinness World Record,” she said.
Coleman says that although the funds have yet to be tallied, she expects to exceed the initial goal of $10,000 towards breast and colorectal cancer research.
Check out the teams’ website for more information, and iBerkshires.com for photos of the event.
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